Interview With The Vampire fanfic
by Lilyrosepetal
Summary: This is a fanfic based off of Anne Rice's book Interview With The Vampire from the Vampire Chronicles.This is my first fanfic, please review! The more reviews the faster the next chapter will come up. I do not own these chracters or the book it's based on
1. Chapter 1

By Lolita Yanki

"This is the part of the stories that you never heard. Now I shall begin with my tale.

'Twas on a dark night of a full moon in a small town of Louisiana, in a plantation next to a hotel. A little girl, appearing to be about five and half, or seven perhaps. But no, she wasn't that young, or old. But she was six, plain simple six. She had hair that was practically an unidentifiable color; her older sisters changing it frequently. She was like a doll to them, a toy now and forever. That little girl was me. Yet, today it was the day, or, night rather, that two of my sister's, my two oldest ones, who were the most beautiful, sensual and seducing, the ones who had the most infatuations, would be going to the most popular bar in all of Louisiana to celebrate their turning of age, at the peak of womanhood. They were to turn seventeen, and eighteen, their birthdays only a week separate. Yet, a day before my youngest, new brother had died in our old plantation. He had fallen down all of the stairs, from the tallest tower all the way down all a hundred and eighty steps. He finally fell onto the floor of the entryway and cracked his little fragile,

hairless head open on the hard vintage floor. Because of this, the entire family moved by carriage to New Orleans. This little girl, Dramana (d-rah-m-an-n-ah) cried her little eyes out. Even though I hadn't known him; I shed many tears over him. For that exact reason. No one in my family knew it, but I was quite intelligent for a girl, or even woman much beyond her own young age.

As soon we reached out new mansion, my sisters Freniere and Clana (c-l-aw-n-ah) ran out of the carriage, anxious to seduce men. Freniere had but only small features, long, soft, silky blonde curls, white skin, blue eyes and big breasts. While Clana had black hair and eyes, her features sharp and her skin was a little tanner than Freniere's yet she too had enormous bosoms. They both wore fancy, fashionable, flashy, expensive dresses that went off their shoulders, exposing most of their breasts. Freniere and Clana both had enormous appetites and could eat a lot, they were also tricked, fooled easily and didn't notice many things. They too were the ones who always got drunk as well. They both could kiss quite well too. Freniere didn't like the dark, and Clana didn't like the cold. Freniere was a Christian, she didn't know it but she was secretly in love with the priest. He was three years older than her and wasn't even that handsome. Still Freniere was a wench, and insisted upon getting paid a lot. Her price was very excessively high to be in the company of a man, mostly older men. Clana didn't always get along with Freniere, Freniere was mean. She would say things about her sister, bad things behind her back. Yet still Clana followed, and copied her sister that night. They were never seen again.

The next day my mother left me with my father. She had gone back to live at her sisters' and older brother's plantation. A day later her brother received a challenge, and died in the fight. My mother Babette told me of vampires two especially; Louis and Lestat. I hung on the words, anxiously waiting to meet them as my mother had claimed to. My mother became an outcast of the entire state. My father disowned my mother along with myself. I soon ended up in the childrens' hospital. I was deathly ill. The next thing I knew, I was in what her mother had described as a vampire's arms.

I coughed and sneezed the entire way to a huge plantation. Another girl was with me in the vampire's arms. She looked like a doll, with beautiful blonde locks. I looked up at the vampire as I was set down into a coffin which I later learned to belong to Lestat himself. I looked around confused and noticed another vampire. He looked just as her mother had described Louis; handsome with white skin and beautiful brown hair. I sat up in the coffin slowly. As the two vampires I presumed to be Louis and Lestat spoke, I got out of the coffin, unable to make out what they were saying. I began to walk towards them until I saw, with wide eyes what they had done to the other girl; they had turned her into a vampire! That was when I ran; ran from them both in fear. As I passed the stove I noticed a hand, a human hand, with the same fingers as my sister, Freniere's hand, just

Barely leaking out of it. I suddenly stopped, recognizing the hand strangely. I approached it slowly. I touched it with an outstretched hand. Suddenly I pulled away from it, terrified. All of a sudden the handle fell, as did the door and I saw her. It was my sister, Freniere! Suddenly sobs began to pour from me as I realized that my sisters weren't missing- they were dead. In between sobs and cries I coughed, being as sickly as I was. I even got a bloody and runny nose. I never really realized it at first, that the vampires, Lestat, and Louis, had heard me, even when Lestat scooped me up into his arms and began caring me away from my sisters. My sight was still bad, since I had been crying. Soon enough though, I had realized that I was in something's, someone's arms. I didn't

know who it was, or where it was taking me. I felt the person's body and immediately knew it was a man. I suddenly got into a coughing fit. I couldn't stop coughing until I felt myself almost in someone else's arms. I felt a cold hand pushing me away, refusing to take me. I had finally stopped coughing and instead now sniffed my runny, sickly nose. As I did, I looked at the men's faces. The one refusing to take me was Louis and the other who was holding me was Lestat. I looked up at Lestat and now stared at him; into his eyes. I softly named him, "Lestat." I watched his eyes widen as he cocked a brow.

"How do you know that name," the one I had called Louis asked almost demanding an answer from me gently, as if I'd break if he yelled or shouted in surprise.

"She's your precious mortal, Babete's youngest daughter," Lestat replied, answering for me.

I nodded to this and saw Louis's eyes go large again; in his pupils I could see her, my mother. She looked confused, yet curious, scared and terrified. All of a sudden I heard my mother screaming. I felt an agonizing pain in my neck. I screamed as I suddenly realized what was happening. Lestat had taken me back from Louis and bitten me. I felt myself dying, it was a strange sensation going threw my body, killing the feeling at my fingertips, and then before I knew it, it was my fingers then my hands. Soon my entire body had gone numb very quickly and I was so confused and scared. Then it was my fingertips once again only this time, it was the feeling of death; that I was dying. It began in my thumb, and then it began to spread to my forefinger, middle finger, ring finger, then my hands, my wrists, forearms, elbows, even my entire arms, both of them, and then my shoulders. Suddenly I felt my heart stop beating, and the death feeling sped up now, getting faster, more contagious throughout my body. It continued, threw my internal organs, my sumac, my thighs, my knees, then my entire leg, and soon enough both legs. I was terrified, and this only fueled my death more. It still continued through my ankles, onto my feet and finally stopped at my small toes. I felt a head rush as the small few drops of blood sped to my head. I moaned. I looked Lestat in the face again. He was even more beautiful than before. He thrust his wrist to me, and I refused.

"Drink," Lestat ordered.

I gasped for breathe, almost in panic. "Never, demond gods, damned," I hissed to him with the last breath that I had. This all went so fast it's heard to remember, I was so near to death. I do remember though, that Lestat beat me, while Louis tried to stop him, until I finally succumbed to him. I drank his blood, knowing too well what I was to become. "So this is my fate, my destiny," I thought to myself before I blacked out in Lestat's arms. That was when my mortal body died and I was born, into darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

I awoke in a coffin. I heard voices, men's voices. "Am I dead," I questioned myself, confused as to where I was. Suddenly, everything came flooding back to me. The night before, everything. I listened to the men's voices, remembering it was now my new master, Lestat, and Louis who spoke. They must have been speaking quite loudly in order for me to hear them, so I slowly realized that they must have been arguing. 'How could you do that Lestat? Turn two innocent girls into-damn them?!" I knew that was Louis.

"What's the big deal," I recognized Lestat's voice ask, "Now, you have all the more reason to stay with me, so you must."

I heard Louis burst out in an angry flare.

"Two girls," I thought to myself, 'I'm not the only one." I looked beside me and sure enough a girl was lying there beside me, looking as beautiful and as lifeless as any doll I had ever held in my lifetime. Suddenly the coffin I had been in flew open. I calmly looked up into a pair of handsome gray eyes. I felt myself being grabbed by a pair of strong vampire hands under my arms as any caring mother would do their doll, her baby, her child. I felt myself being lifted out of the coffin. My back left the straightness of the bottom of the coffin slowly and then my body almost sat up on its own. Soon enough I found myself being lifted into the air. It seemed as if I weight nothing in his arms as he held me to him as if he were my mother, as if I was his. But yet again, I am jumping ahead of myself. Now, where was I? Oh yes, of course, Lestat carried me to Louis with a smirk.

'How could I not," he continued his conversation with Louis as if they had never stopped speaking, "Look at her."

I stared at them both almost blankly giving them an innocent stare that looked confused, curious even. For I was.

Louis looked into my eyes. I gave him a questioning look. "Louis," I asked slowly, softly.

I watched his eyes question me as he took me from Lestat and into his arms. He cradled me even more cautiously than Lestat had. "How do you know that name," he asked gently a she carried me onto the balcony.

"My mother told me of you," I told him, "And of Lestat."

"Bebette," Louis gasped, "She's your mother?"

"Yes, she was," I told him softly. 'My father disowned both of us, so I am no longer hers, or anyone's."

"But you are mine, my dear," Lestat interrupted as he came up behind Louis and I. "Louis, give her to me," he instructed Louis, "I'm going to take her hunting." Even then I saw that Louis and Lestat had a special relationship. The way he had requested this of Louis, yet demanded him to do it at the same time. It was so loving yet, commanding at the same time.

Anyways, Louis handed me to Lestat.

Lestat put me on my own two feet. "Come," he called to me as he stood on the railing of the balcony.

"Lestat, what are you doing," Louis screamed at Lestat as he threw his long, strong arms around me, stopping me from going to him. He hugged me closely to him. I almost missed the body heat of a human's body.

"I'm teaching her," Lestat told Louis almost gently. He turned back to me. "Now come to me, my child,' Lestat insisted.

"No! Not this fast! You'll overwhelm her, she's just a child," Louis argued. You see, even then he had loved me and thought of me as a child, only a child.

I smiled at Louis as I told him, "don't worry, I'll be ok." I willed him to let me go, and he did. I walked over to Lestat.

Lestat embraced me briefly before jumping off the balcony. He held me in his arms still as he jumped off, and held me with him as we began to fall, gravity.

I felt the air rushing underneath my skirt and blowing my hair behind me. I could feel the tips of my hair lightly tickling Lestat's face. All too soon I felt us land. I could just barely hear Lestat's feet land upon the ground. I was amazed at him already. "You really are a vampire, aren't you,' I asked him almost gasping. Yes, it was a rather unnecessary question, for the answer was obvious. Yet I was so amazed that I had to ask it.

"Of course, my dear," Lestat told me, "What else would I be?" He was always so cocky.

I sighed smiling, slightly smirking. "I always knew vampire existed," I told him.

"I know," Lestat whispered into my right ear almost seducingly. His voice practically seduces me with each word he speaks to me. I don't know if it is just because he is a vampire, or because he is so attractive to me, even still. All I knew is that I felt a shiver go up my spine when he talked to me.

I felt the coldness of Lestat's dead breath rush into my ear. As most vampires, Lestat had a deep, sensual voice that was almost hypnotizing. It leaves the listener longing for more, hanging on every single word that comes out of his mouth. I soon found myself upon my own feet once again. The coolness of the cemement sidewalks no longer cooled me; I was just as cold as it was. I stood on my own two feet feeling a little bit unbalanced. That didn't stop Lestat from taking my hand and forcing me to walk with him. As I walked my body didn't get any warmer, and the night grew colder and darker. I wasn't afraid because Lestat was with me, and I knew that I was an immortal. I enjoyed the darkness. I could see even better than before. No, I wasn't afraid, not in the least. Lestat held onto my hand tightly as we went searching for the perfect prey.


	3. Chapter 3

"I caught sight of a person, a man. He looked drunk so, I ripped my hand out of Lestat's quickly and ran over to the man. Just then I got an idea. Instead of stopping ahead of him, I went in front of him into a nice dark secluded alleyway. I sat down and wailed, not really crying, but only pretending. I was acting so the man would come over. Crying children always got people's attention no matter who they are. Yet it appeared that the man didn't hear me. I became so enraged that he was ignoring me." Dramana gave an embarrassed smile to the recorder, "I have a short temper." She apologized. She quickly got back into her story. "So I ended up running up to him and grabbing his wrist. For a few seconds I didn't know what to do. It hit me that I had acted rather rashly, as I often to. I was just so hungry! Recovering quickly, and improvising as well may I add, I smiled at him kindly. I know I scared him, I could see it in his wide coffee mug eyes and his rapidly beating heart that was pumping that delicious blood of his. "I've come to lead you home, father" I told him smoothly. I hypnotized him to believe me to be his dead daughter, bloody murdered with his own drunken hands. I could see it in his eyes. The little girl he had loved, the woman he despised. The little girl was a vision of him, same coffee mug eyes, same dark coffee hair color as well as thickness. She had the same appearance in fact. Her skin tone even matched his dark olive skin that I couldn't wait to sink my teeth into. She had thick luscious black fine lashes as he did and was daddy's little girl. Suddenly I heard him begin to speak, "You're back" he whispered in a slurred drunken voice. But he only got the word you're almost out before I silenced him, knowing what he was thinking, and even what he was most likely to say. I slid my hand into his and grasped it gently, almost lovingly. I knew that if he began to say what the wanted then he would be sobbing on and on about his "daughter" coming back to forgive him for everything he had done to her and even possibly loving him again. I didn't have the patience, I needed, even wanted to feed. I was starving and thirsty. I admit it: I was blood thirsty. I wanted blood and I wanted it now! So instead of letting him cry his eyes out, I led him into an alley. I wasted no time. I sank my teeth into his wrist quickly. I felt Lestat looming over me as I began to drink. I felt so at peace when I drank. I was calmed and soothed as no person had ever done to me before. I was filled with a sudden joy that I had never felt before. It was so simple and because of such a simple thing. It was unbelievable. Somehow I found the strength to withdraw from my blissful drink and held the man up to Lestat, offering him to Lestat so he may feed.

He smiled at me I saw his eyes sparkle at the sight of the fresh blood that etched out of the small fang holes in his neck that I had made.

I watched him as I saw him kneel down next to me.

He drew the man's arm up and his wrist towards himself. "I couldn't take your victim from you," He told me as he drew his arm around me, almost embracing me to him, "We shall share, my dear. You earned it." With that I watched him draw the man's wrist to him and plunged his teeth into the blood veins, fisting well.


	4. Chapter 4

I admired his pure white pointy vampiric teeth as I watched them bit down upon the man's silken olive flesh

I admired his pure white pointy vampiric teeth as I watched them bite down upon the man's silken olive flesh. Even his fangs were magnificent and beautiful. I watched Lestat and admired him as he fed for a few more seconds before grasping the man's wrist and re-opening the wound I had inflicted upon the man only a few moments ago, and I myself drank. I think it was at that moment that I fell in love with Lestat. Although I too now was a vampire, I still found Lestat beautiful and magnificent. The blood felt so good from the second I felt it gush into my mouth to flowing down my body. My first taste of blood. Already I knew that I was enjoying it far too much. The blood flowed smoothly down my throat: silk. I felt the blood begin to warm me, comforting e to become calm and tranquil. Suddenly I felt Lestat shove me, hard, off of my prey. Surprised, I released my prey and fell, being pushed by Lestat, I flew to the wall, flying into it. I felt myself vomit a few precious droplets of blood as I hit the wall unable to move because of shock. I blinked in surprise. I watched as Lestat at drank up the rest of the man's blood. Soon enough I felt that I could move again. I carefully dismantled myself from the wall and began to make my way towards Lestat rather clumsily. Actually, I practically fell when I was dismantling myself, as embarrassing as it is to admit. It took my body a few seconds to heal so I couldn't walk right away either. Yet I still made my way back to Lestat. Nothing could stop me from doing that. At the same time something dawned on me. As I watched Lestat feed upon the man, I saw my past.

As I was walking towards him he spoke to me. "Don't drink after the heart has stopped beating," he lectured me knowing I was wondering why he thrust me off of my prey.

"You're the one who killed my Uncle, and sisters weren't you," I demanded.

Suddenly his eyes glittered deviously. "Yes, I was," he tormented me, "Louis didn't want me to, but I did anyway." He winked at me. He sleeked up behind me and wrapped his long, strong arms around me. "He was almost as tasty as you were." He whispered to me.

I boldly asked, shaking. "And my sisters?"

I heard Lestat sigh contently in my ear; hearing him before I felt the wind of his breath brush past me. "They were lovely. I would have fallen in love with them, had I been human. They ate a lot, which merely disgusted me but their sweet childish kisses made up for it all. They were beautiful, such sweet naive girls. They got frightened so easily! It was fun to scare them and torture them." He gave an airy cackle. "Yes, they were fun," he remarked as if they had only been toys. There was a short period of silence.

"Oh," I remarked softly, having nothing more I could say. I was infuriated with him on the inside though I know he could feel my anger by the way he gripped my shoulders.

Suddenly he crushed my shoulders, disabling my arms.

I screamed in pain, knowing that he was going to hurt me

He shoved me to the ground, pulling my head up and breaking my neck with a quick thrust.

I went to kick him in self defense, but beat me to it by breaking my legs, shattering every bone in my body. I didn't even hear him leave when he did, but I knew I was alone.


	5. Chapter 5

I thought I was going to die there. I wasn't afraid. Before I knew it I felt another being in the alley. As it approached me at an alarmingly fast rate I realized it was another immortal. I felt myself being picked up and could tell it was another vampire by the hand structure. I looked up into Louis's eyes as he scooped me into his lap. "Why dose Lestat hate me, for hating him," I asked him sadly as a blood tear slid down my cheek. My body was slowly healing.

Louis picked me up and sighed, "Lestat is like that, just don't get him angry." Louis carried me back home after that. We didn't say much to each other on the way home.


	6. Chapter 6

"It was during those moments that I fell in love with Louis

"It was during those moments that I fell in love with Louis. It's strange how the heart seems to desire everything that is as fantastical as a vampire. I too was a vampire yet my heart still liked them, to say the least. How I could love more than one man at a time I do not know. But I did. Call me a fool, I did.

Soon enough my wounds, my bones, had healed for the most part. I was almost ready to get up and going again. Yet it was time to sleep. In that moment I felt incredibly sleepy and almost fell over from drowsiness. Another clumsy moment as a vampire. How pathetic I was finding myself to be. Lucky for me Louis caught me as I fell backwards and picked me up. I still didn't have a coffin of my own that night. So I bargained with Louis to sleep with him and Claudia in his, as crowded as it was already. I refused to sleep with Lestat. I still hated him. Louis picked me up in his arms and brought me to his coffin. He held me to him as he slid down gracefully into his coffin, holding my close as to protect me from the sun that was soon to come." She smiled up at the recorder fondly in memory. "Louis always was the protective one." Then she was back to her story. "He held me to him, his doll as he settled us both into the safe coffin. I was on one side of him and Claudia laid on the other. It was no easy fit but Louis made it work. I curled up closely nestling into his chest. Of course there was no heart beat to be heard, but it was still comforting. Claudia laid leaning on Louis's back, curling her fingers in his hair for comfort. Claudia and I were so different even then. I suppose I was the needier one. But we both loved Louis, which was almost painfully obvious at times. As Louis closed the coffin I couldn't hold my feelings in any longer. I sighed to him, with my eyes closed as I nestled closely to him, "I love you Louis." I heard the coffin close down on top of us. I was almost afraid to see his reaction so I kept my eyes closed. But I still felt him smile kindly down upon me. He kissed my forehead softly before we both fell into a deep sleep. Him holding me, and me holding him."


	7. Chapter 7

I awoke before Louis the next night

I awoke before Louis the next night. I gazed at Louis as he slept for a few moments before I heard woman's voices coming from the outside of the coffin. I swiftly snuck out of Louis's coffin and hid in a dark corner of the room. I looked into the room and recognized Lestat immediately. I could smell the perfume of wine, fine wine and beer along with food mixed with the scent of lavender perfume and vanilla perfume and of course I smelled the fresh blood coming off of the women. I was hungry again; of course, o I had to figure out a way that I could feed upon these women before Lestat did. I quickly came up with a plan. I ran into the room and threw my arms around Lestat. "Uncle the orphanage has given me to you because mommy is dead," I told him childishly. "Play along, women LOVE men with adorable children," I mind-spoke to Lestat the plan.

"I know," Lestat coed to me as he bent down gracefully to pick me up. He kissed both of my cheeks.

My body practically began pulsing again from those kisses he had given me. They had been gentle and almost loving. They reminded me of the kisses my father used to give me almost regularly before he disowned my mother and me.

"Oh you poor thing," the women cooed practically in unison as they surrounded Lestat and I.

"Let me hold her," one of the women begged Lestat as she reached out to steal me from him.

Lestat allowed the woman to take me from him as he turned his attention to a different girl that was around him.

The woman held me with my neck over her shoulder as if I were her baby. I sensed Louis and the other demon child prey upon some of the other three women.

They all finished feeding upon their preys quickly so I bit the woman that was holding me.

"There's enough for all," I mind-spoke to them al just as the woman screamed.

I watched as Louis grabbed onto the woman's right wrist and turned to see the demon child latch onto the woman's left arm. I turned back to the neck to see Lestat staring into my eyes. I nodded to him as I continued to drink. All of us drank from the body in a group feast.


	8. Chapter 8

Once we finished, I volunteered to put all of the dead bodies into the stove

Once we finished, I volunteered to put all of the dead bodies into the stove. That way they could be disposed of in a respectable yet secretive manner. I picked them all up, throwing each one over one of my shoulders and then adding another behind my neck like a milk girl. The other two I dragged behind me by the hand. I walked to the stove and opened it. Once again I was faced with my sisters' dead bodies. I suddenly dropped all of the dad bodies at the sudden sight of them. The other three rolled off my body, having lost their balance. The memories flashed threw my mind quickly. Seeing them leave for their birthday. Letting them dress me up and put make up on me. Their lives, or at least the time that I had shared with them, flashed before my eyes. I backed up, afraid only to bump into something behind me. I could tell by the shape of the thing that it was a person's legs. I didn't look back to see who it was; I was too frightened. I couldn't take my eyes off of them, as much as I wanted to. I felt arms go around me, tightly holding me to them. "Shhh," I heard Louis's gentle comforting voice whisper into my right ear, "Come. Don't look."

He picked me up quickly, cradling me safely in his arms so that my face was now buried in his muscular chest. He held me tightly to him.

Blood tears formed in my eyes, making everything look bloody red. That was the first time that I cried blood tears. It startled me at first, forcing even more tears out of my eyes. Then I was free to cry. "Why did Lestat have to kill them both," I sobbed. Looking back I don't know why I said this. I would have been equally as sad if it had been only one of them.

"You know very well why," Lestat sighed, coming into the room.

I hadn't heard him come into the room. I turned to look at him. I looked up at him in a sharp glare. "Because you are a brat," I insulted him.

Lestat laughed at me then, in spite.

I glared at him, shaking my head as our eyes mirrored each other's glares. "You are so selfish it's almost as if you are human," I hypothesized.

"Well if you think that I'm human than you are even dumber than I thought," Lestat continued to laugh.

I growled at him as I tried to get out of Louis's arms so that I could get at Lestat back for calling me dumb.

"Dramana, no! Don't," Louis calmed me, holding me closer to him protectively, "He's to strong. No. Don't. Not yet."

Lestat smirked at Louis with an approving nod. "That's right my love," he told Louis as he walked towards us.

Louis put me down. "Leave us," he whispered to me softly.

Lestat reached over me to Louis's hair and stroked it gently with his right hand.

I sighed in envy, somehow, of both of them. I watched as Louis gave a small, weak loving smile back at Lestat. I couldn't stand it any longer. I couldn't take it. I had to get out of there. So I left the room. Alone.


	9. Chapter 9

To blow off some steam I seducted people into doing things I wanted

To blow off some steam I seduced people into doing things I wanted. I sat down upon a park bench and looked across the park to see the other vampire demon devil child. I stared at her and she stared back. After a few hours a man finally came and took both me and Claudia to the doll store. In the end, the other girl took him as prey. The girl and I walked back home holding hands.

"My name is Claudia," she announced to me with a small smile. Her voice had an accent that I couldn't place.

"Dramana," I answered her. We walked for a couple of minutes in silence. "You don't hunt with Louis… or Lestat?" I asked timidly.

Claudia smiled at me. "Louis, he wouldn't like what I do. The way I manipulate people, force them to feel sorry for me, pity me. In doing this, I deceive them into thinking I'm innocent, a child but really I'm not. Lestat, he is my daddy. I love him. But," she paused, "hello, there is no reason I guess." Claudia smiled, "I love him!"

"Oh," I sighed, "I……uh…see."

"Why don't you," Claudia asked me.

"I do," I sighed, "It's just….."

"What," Claudia persisted after a few moments of silence.

"Lestat hates me. All Louis wants to do is protect me, but he and Lestat are so much in love that I just am not as loved as I would like to be I guess. I don't want Lestat to hate me," I began to cry. A few blood tears ran down my face.

Claudia licked my right cheek, being so blood thirsty that she'd even drink my blood. "Oh," she replied. There were a few moments of silence again. "My doll wants to go home. Coming?" she asked.

My eyes fell upon the expensive porcine glass doll that looked just like Claudia, curly bouncy blonde curly locks, and almost pink-white complexion because of the glass, light bubbly blue almost aqua eyes and a petite nose. They both wore matching bright yellow dresses, doll and owner twins. They were both so beautiful. I found myself a bit jealous even though I was just as beautiful as her. I shook my head. "No, thanks. I came out here to have my time a lone," I explained to her.

She blinked as if insulted a couple times.

"I just need to think," I sighed as I lead myself to finding that Claudia had left me alone. I walked a few feet before I ran into Lestat.

"Lestat," I whispered in awe, "What are you doing here?!"

Lestat smirked as he began to approach me. "I've sent Claudia away so that we can be alone." Suddenly he had his arms around me, embracing me to him tightly.

"What?! No!" I wanted to scream and shout. But no sound would escape my lips. I was in shock. Paralyzed. Frozen. Stuck.

"How could you think I don't love you," Lestat gasped in shock.

"Claudia," I sighed, thinking that she had told him. That that was the way he found out what I thought.

"No, my dear," Lestat corrected me as he began to stroke my hair, "My dear one."

Suddenly it came to me, the answer! The answer was that he had been eavesdropping on me and Claudia!

"You nosy brat prince," I began to accuse him.

"Yes. I heard you and my lover-child Claudia," Lestat laughed contently, "Talking earlier. Now how could you ever even begin to imagine that I don't love you?"

"It seemed like it," I muttered in a sigh.

Suddenly Lestat lifted my chin with his hand gently so his gray eyes would meet mine. "All of your reasons are wrong," Lestat told me.

I sighed. "So I was chosen to be bitten, changed, sentenced to damnation. You didn't do it just because you wanted to or had to? You wanted me. You love me?" I questioned him a bit timidly.

Lestat gave a small chuckle. "Yes I love you," he whispered softly into my ear before he kissed my left cheek lightly. Things got too quiet as he held me for a few silent hours. I heard him sigh.

That was when I realized that he hadn't answered my first question. Had he really wanted to make me, or had he just made me out of impulse? As he continued to hold me I let the possibilities fly through my mind. He never had to make me. Suddenly it all clicked. "You did this to me," I accused him, "Only for your own selfish desires. You only made me into this, monster, because you had to, because, I had found out your dirty little secret from my mother. I'm right, aren't I?" I looked up at Lestat's face, almost trying desperately to make eye contact with him. To my great disappointment, he looked away, avoiding me and my question completely. But I would be patient. I would wait until he would give me the answer.

After a long pause, Lestat finally answered, "yes." At that moment he released me.

Tears formed in my eyes. I turned away from Lestat so he wouldn't see me cry. I didn't want him to think I was weak. I even took a few steps away from him to make sure he didn't see. I thought, "My poor sisters. They never knew what they were getting into, what was happening to them until it was too late. They both suffered because I failed to educate them. I should have taught them." My sisters never did believe in vampires or any of the. They always only thought of them as not being real. As a fantasy. As false. As just something in one's imagination. In my imagination. I was, at the time, in the stage where I blamed myself. I was blaming myself for my sisters' deaths, even though I couldn't have done anything about it.

Lestat was studying me intently. "No," Lestat cooed in my ear, "It's not your fault."

"How did you know," I hissed at him.

"I could just tell by your posture," Lestat sighed, "You are acting so like a human, blaming yourself when it has nothing to do with you! It's not your fault that they fell for me." He gave a selfish smile, obviously proud of himself.

I sighed as I turned around to face him still with tears in my eyes. Another tear ran out of my left eye. "If I had kept them home with me, then they wouldn't have," I sobbed, "If I had been there, then I could have protected them." I couldn't help but think this at the time. I had to be able to do something. I didn't want to be so useless.

"Those were only Ifs, and we both know that you couldn't have been able to protect them from me," Lestat scolded me, "you were only a human then, you weren't and still aren't powerful enough to take me on in a fight. You wouldn't have, couldn't have, and can't resist me." He smirked at me and put out his arms.

I found myself being drawn to him. My feet moved my legs, making me walk towards him and his open arms. I wanted to resist. I need to prove to him that I was stronger than he thought I was. And that I was also stronger than him! For a second I could resist him, refusing to move. This required all of my strength.

Lestat raised a brow at me, clearly surprised if not impressed. His eyes gave a slight glitter in admiration. "Incredible," he sighed softly as he took a few strides towards me, closing the distance between us. Suddenly he gripped me by my shoulders. His grip was a holding, cradling grip. It was gentle yet firm. It was firm, hard enough to hold me up yet somehow gentle.

I wasn't sure what to think I was a bit shocked frightened yet at the same time happy to be in his arms. I wanted to scream either out of surprise or squeal out of joy but yet again nothing came out of my mouth. I was too surprised to do anything in response.

Not even a second later Lestat lifted up into the air with the same grip.

My feet were dangling over the ground and in the air. The only thing holding me sturdily in the air, off of the ground, was Lestat's hands holding me. I became more fearful and even surprised at this moment. My throat began to feel choked up and dry.

Suddenly Lestat drew me to him quickly and gave me an intense kiss. Lestat had kissed me!

I couldn't believe it for the first couple seconds. I blinked in shock and surprise. In the end, I lightly kissed him back, not exactly sure how to react so my body did it automatically. The kiss lasted a long yet all too short minute.

Once the kiss ended, Lestat gave a smirk. "I told you that you couldn't resist me," he pointed out smartly.

I blushed faintly. Suddenly I shoved him away from me in an angry fury. I watched him fly a few inches from me. I finally landed upon the ground, upon my own two feet having pushed myself out of his arms. I glared at him. "Why did you make me? You don't love me! I would have kept quiet, for Louis's sake! My moth3er may be afraid of you and your kind but I'm not!" I screamed at him. I approached Lestat a few fatal steps towards him as I yelled at him. Blood tears filled up my eyes and soon overflowed them. "It was for nothing," I breathed, "The kiss, making me, everything!" I finally saw what no other vampire, even to this day have seen. In the dark black pupils of Lestat's eyes I could see it; fear. It was cold blooded pure fear.

"No, you are wrong," Lestat burst out.

"It was all a mistake," I hissed at him. Before I could hear anymore I ran, ran as fast as I could in my immortal speed for the first time, but most certainly not the last. Soon enough I had stopped in the forest. "I should never have been made," I suddenly realized. I collapsed to my knees, sobbing uncontrollably.


	10. Chapter 10

After maybe an hour of sobbing I felt gentle hands upon my shoulders

After maybe an hour of sobbing I felt gentle hands upon my shoulders. I looked up into pitying eyes. "Louis," I sighed, practically sobbing the words. Granted I didn't want his pity, but I longed for his love.

He just gave a small, comforting smile to me. His hand reached out and stroked the right side of hair that had fallen into my face behind my ear. He knelt down beside me and placed his hand upon the sides of my head. He slowly inched his face closer to mine. He was, and still is, elegant and graceful. His gentle lips neared my eyes.

I sighed, almost contently, as I realized what he was doing. He was going after my blood tears. I closed my eyes just as his lips gently grazed my right eyelid gently. I felt his tongue slide down my cheeks, cleaning the right side of my face of blood. He did the same to my left side, tracing the trail of blood and cleaning my face gently. He returned to my eyelashes and slid his tongue along my eye outline.

I opened my eyes a bit, just enough for his tongue to slide in upon my eyeballs, cleaning up all of the tears that could have fallen once I had opened my eyes. It felt a bit cold at first, even hurt a bit. But I welcomed the pain and allowed him to do both eyes. It felt so sensual, almost soothing.

Louis didn't stop until he had licked up every last small drop of blood that had been on my face.

When I felt his face retreat back to rest upon his masculine neck once again, the

crown of his body, I opened my eyes to see his human-appearing self. His complexion had become a bit softer and creamier.

"Come," he mind spoke to me as he gracefully slid his arm under my knees and back. No spoken words would ruin this moment.

And so Louis took me home and we slept.

Lestat had already taken Claudia to sleep. \

So it was just the two of us in Louis's coffin. He fell asleep first and I took this chance to trace his facial features with my left hand gently. I didn't want to wake him yet I couldn't resist his beauty. His face was so beautiful and almost soft. Soon I too fell into my own dead sleep.

The next night I rose from thre dead first, so to speak. I left the house to prey. I found myself at a nearby church. A mother and daughter were on their way to confession. The mother looked like a lower-class mother. I glimpsed her real life in her mind though. She was a common whore that selt herself for an extremely low price. She was obviously just trying to make a living. Yet I still found her disgusting. Her daughter was a adorable innocent. The only sin she had ever committed was stealing a cookie out of the cookie jar before dinner. The woman was slightly attractive with slightly curly dirty brown hair with a few golden yellow highlights in it. Her eyes were tired gray-green eyes. Her body was worn and droopy. She had done her job so much that she looked ten years older than she actually was. Her daughter was much better looking than she was. She had curly black hair with light gray hair. She wore a fine tan dress with matching suade shoes. I could not resist her. I approached her and requested the mother as if I was interested in being one of her customers. I told her that I was sent to find her by my father and mother.

The woman gave me a seductive smile. Of course she would take business at this hour.

I escorted her to the finest hotel and lured her into a room. I hadn't even paid for the room! I just told her that my father was waiting for her in the rom and opened it with my mind. Lucky for me no one was in there at the time. The bed was made and I lured her onto the bed. "Daddy is working late, he'll be home soon," I reashured her as I closed the door behind us. I then turned to the daughter. "I have some dolls in the other room if you want to come play with me," I offered her.

The daughter's eyes lit up. She had never had the pleasure of owning her own doll. She had only gotten to play with the dolls that some of her mother's lady friends owned.

I smiled at her and lead her into the other room. I closed the door behind us and walked up to her, embracing her from behind. "Daddy must have taken the dolls to get fixed," I apologized to her in a whisper as I put my mouth near her left ear, " I'm sure you'll find some better ones in another place."

The girl went almost limp in my arms. She closed her eyes as my voice lulled her to sleep.

The second she closed her eyes I sank my teeth into her and released her to be one of the gods' angel. Once I was finished with her I lay her gently down on the ground and closed her eyes. I kissed her forehead, chin and then her cheeks to form a sign of the cross. She would go to heaven. Just like mother. Now to deal with her mother.

I went back into the room and closed the door behind me to find that she had wasted no time in getting ready. She had already stripped down to her slip. I jumped onto the bed beside her.

She looked at me rather confused, anxious and a big upset.

"I'm tired," I lied to her, "Can I sleep with you?"

Before she could answer I had nestled next to her. My little body clutched her right arm as I nestled my face next to her neck. I did not wait for an answer and bit into her, sending a rush of ecstacy in which she had never felt before. In a few minutes she was dead. With that I left the hotel.


	11. Chapter 11

As I turned the corner to get back home I found a piano store

As I turned the corner to get back home I found a piano store. I gazed in at the wooden piano with ivory black and white teeth. I couldn't resist it and so I went inside not even a second later to look at it up close. I walked into the store and found my way to the piano that I had seen through the window. I walked up to the piano slowly, in awe. I was in awe of how beautiful it was. I sat down at the piano elegantly. I sat there a bit confused and bewildered, overwhelmed by the piano's beauty. I had learned how to play the scale on the piano when I was younger, but I was never able to learn how to play anything more. I stared at the piano, not sure if I could still play the scale or not. It had been years since I had even seen a piano this beautiful. Our family had owned a grand piano; my mother could play it well and took lessons from Beethoven himself. My mind flashed back to those days. I had thought I was in love with Beethoven when I was young. He was even older than my mother and I was only a little girl, but I still thought that it had been love. I was so foolish to think that when he was so crazy. All geniuses are mentally insane in some way or another. But it was not him himself that I loved, but it was his music. My mother had loved it too. She had loved to play the piano. Every evening after supper we would gather around the piano and listen to her play sonnet after sonnet. She had always been so happy when she was playing the piano. My sisters would sometimes sing with her or my father would pick up his violin and accompany her. All Beethoven's music that he had written was beautiful. I still love to listen to it and even play it. But I'm ruining this all for you. So sorry. As I had said, I wasn't sure if I could play it. Still, just to felt he clean white ivory keys under my fingers I placed my small fingers gingerly upon the piano keys. Almost instinctively I found that I had begun to play. It started with me just pressing down upon middle C an then suddenly I was playing a song. I remembered hearing it when I was just brought home by the midwife and I awoke to haring it. I didn't know the name of the song, but it was beautiful. I began to hum along as I continued. I rushed home to ask if I could buy it to find Lestat and Claudia fighting again. They had been fighting for about a century or so now. And it always seemed to be the same thing that they were fighting about.

"I want to be a woman," Claudia screamed.

"Mon dieu, you grow more melancholy every day," Lestat screamed.

"What am I to be forever a child then, a doll," Claudia demanded, "You dress me like a doll! You make my hair like a doll! Do you want me to stay a doll forever?!"

"You've never been able to change within the past century what makes you think you could change what you are now," Lestat demanded.

Claudia screamed in anger. "Which one of you did it?!"

Poor Louie, he had entered the wrong room at the wrong time.

Claudia looked at both of them now. "Which one of you did it?! Which one of you made me the way that I am?!"

"What you are? A vampire gone insane and pollutes it's bed?" Lestat demanded.

Now I realized the situation. Claudia had taken another woman and this time had kept the body in her bed. How disgusting. I cringed at the thought.

"But it wasn't always so. I had a mother and Louie he had a wife. He was mortal the same as she and so was I. You made us what we are didn't you?! Did you do it to me?!"

She reached out to harm Lestat and I dashed in her way, holding her back. She struggled against my arms for a few minutes before stopping. After a long period of silence I released her and allowed her to calmly approach Lestat.

"How did you do it," she demanded to know.

"Why should I tell you? It's in my power." Lestat taunted her with a smirk.

"And yours alone? Tell me how it was done!" Claudia asked yet again.

"Be glad I made you what you are. You'd be dead now if I hadn't just like that damned corpse. Now get rid of it!" Lestat ordered Claudia.

"You get rid of it," Claudia resisted.

I couldn't take it any longer. With that I ran out of the house.


	12. Chapter 12

For days they fought like this

For days they fought like this. Claudia was always fighting with Lestat continuously until one night.

One night I came home late. The sun had begun to come up and although it had just come up I was already blazing aflame.

I was running as fast as I could, trying to get back to the coffins before they were closed. Suddenly I felt the sun upon me. It burned the back of my head. I tried to hold the scream in, not to scream but the urge was too strong to withstand. I screamed loudly for my masters. "Someone please, help me," I begged, thinking in my mind, "save me, save me Louis! Lestat, Claudia, anyone, anything! Help!" I knew people would soon see me, discover me and realize that I was not human. Also the pain would get worse as the sun came up more and more, the flames swallowing me, killing me, ending this new life that I had been granted. So to be quicker and unseen I took to the roofs knowing at the same time that I'd be closer to the sun and be burnt more. That was a sacrifice that I'd have to make. Still, I had to get home. I wanted to see Louis again, even Lestat as well. Blood tears ran down my face as I continued to scream in pain. Meanwhile the sun continued to rise, making my eyes grow heavy. I ran blindly. It was only a few more houses away. Suddenly I felt myself falling. I must have come to the end of a roof top. I fell, stumbling back to my own feet as I sprinted the rest of the way home. As embarrassing as it is to admit, I ran into a tree. I couldn't take it anymore! I dug blindly into the ground frantically trying to cover myself. A few times I felt the dirt land on me, still thinking I was going to die.

I don't know how or why but I survived that night. I awoke to find myself buried. Now, I was smart enough to realize that I had not buried myself. I looked around my surroundings to find that I was near the swamp that was near our house. My eyes fell upon a body. I uncovered it in curiosity to find my master Lestat. "Lestat," I gasped in shock.

He did move or answer in any way.

This worried me. "Lestat, "I screamed in alarm as I dug furiously to dig him up. I unburied him and held his body to me, sobbing.

He still had not moved at all.

I unburied him and held his body to me, sobbing. Suddenly I realized he wasn't quite dead yet. I bit my wrist and thrust it into his mouth.

Slowly he began to drink. After a few drops had gone into his mouth he finally reached up and clutched my wrist and began to suck upon it. He clutched my wrist to him.

After that Lestat was still weak and so was I. The closest things to us were swamp animals and so I grabbed a bunch of those. I murdered toads, snakes, even fish for their blood. I gave Lestat some as well and soon enough he began to hunt for himself.

He went after far bigger swamp creatures.

Once he and I had drunk, we went home. Yet we didn't receive the greeting I thought we'd get.

Claudia screamed at the sight of Lestat and before I knew what was happening everything was on fire.

I turned to Lestat to find him on fire. "No, Lestat," I cried frantically as I tried to extinguish the fire that had engulfed Lestat. Tears blurred my vision yet again. Suddenly I heard Lestat's Voice in my mind.

"Get out of here," It yelled at me, "Leave me!" He yelled so loudly that it practically gave me a headache from the first word.

"B-b-but," I quivered like the child that I was.

"GO," he ordered me, "I'll be fine. Really! Don't worry. Now go, go with Louis. Take care of him for me. We will meet again."

With that I darted out of the burning house still sobbing. I found a way through the front door surprisingly enough.

Louis caught me in his arms, sobbing himself, "Thank god you're safe," he told me, kissing me. He carried me into a carriage and we soon took off.


	13. Chapter 13

"Where are we going," I asked.

"We are going to travel the world," Louis replied.

"Where are we going FIRST," I demanded.

"We'll travel by boat to Varna," Louis told me quickly as we got out of the carriage to walk.

"We'll follow the bible," Claudia explained.

I nodded, understanding that translated into that we would follow Claudia's many books.

Louis carried the heavy coffin full of books to the boat dock.

"The Mariana," I cried to them, "let's take that one!"

We jumped onto it just as the boat began to take off. The boat sailed down the Mississippi across the Atlantic and into the black Sea until we finally reached out destination: Varna.

"I want that coach," Claudia insisted.

Louis simply smiled and nodded to her.

I went to it. When I opened the door to it I was pleased to find that it was lined with leather. We entered the coach and rode it up the mountains. I was afraid. The people, everything looked dangerous. I cuddled next to Louis, "Louis," I whimpered in fear.

Louis looked down at me and our eyes met.

I saw the anxiety in his eyes.

He silently put his arm around me and held me close.

The first night we stayed in the obscured ruins of a castle. We all had grown thirsty. Foolishly I went out hunting in the busiest town in the country. I had taken my prey into an alleyway that I had thought no one would find me in. That had been a mistake. The second that I sunk my teeth into the man a person walked into the alleyway. They were behind me so I did not see them, but I did hear their scream. They screamed and ran away. I took a bit more of my prey's blood and ran away myself. I had endangered our kind. I had endangered my family and the ones that I loved. Quickly we all ran and luckily escaped. "I'm sorry," I sobbed.

Louis quickly quieted me for safety measures. Once I had quieted down he told us sternly, "We'll have to kill disguised."

From that night on we did exactly that. I even still do that to this day. We traveled alone, fast and lavishly among the morals. Simply struggling to survive. Killing only a single person each every other night or so and trying not to get caught as the monsters we were. At night I slept with Louis and Claudia, close to Louis's chest and next to Claudia. I knew he loved her and was terribly jealous so I snuggled close to him whenever I got the chance, which was quite rare according to my selfish needs and desires. I savored the freshness of the air and the coolness of the nights. I knew Louis hated them and this journey as well. I wanted to end it all, to settle down. But like Claudia, I was curious of our past. That is, I was interested indeed, but not obsessed as she was. We had stayed in a farmhouse the next night, burying ourselves under ground before the sun could appear to hypnotize us to a deathly sleep. By the next night we longed for an inn. The second we reached the nearest in, by carriage of course, I knew something was wrong. The air was thick with mystery and death, and we had not caused it. I noticed a box of flowers, already withered as well as a barrel that tolled back and forth in the center of the yard. Something was indeed amiss. After seeing the barrel, things became more obvious to me. This place was infected with the plague. I shuddered as I recalled the symptoms that I once had exhibited before Louis and Lestat had saved me from my impending death. The chills, the labor I had to put myself through in order to simply take in a simple single breath, the pain that my entire body was in. I almost felt sick again. My memory was interrupted by Claudia approaching me. I tried to shake it off, but for some reason my body would not stop shaking. I approached the doorway and noticed the cross and garlic and laughed softly to myself, the mere sight of them cheering me up, "How pathetic." I pitied them. To be so frail as to fear things so much that they try to protect themselves against things that they do not even believe in. They don't even know for sure if the garlic would work, fools.

"Put your hoods of your capes up," Claudia commanded us. A second later she warned us, "They're coming."

I pulled on the black hood of my cape, not noticing if Louis did the same or not. My cape was a smaller version of Louis's just like Claudia's. We all had matching black wool capes. Claudia had indeed been correct in her sightings because a few minutes later the door opened.

"A room for the night," Louis said in German.

At least, I believe that is what he said. He had only taught me the basic things to say at an Inn on the way here way back when we were on the boat.

"The night's no time for traveling, and with children," the woman pointed out to us.

I gave her a begging face that almost no human could refuse. "Please give us a room," I whined.

"My daughter's tired," Louis played out with me, "We've no place to say, but here."

"Nowhere," I pretended to sob, going into fake tears. I could act well in front of the humans, so much that they are forced into believing the poor innocent girl that they believe me to be.

The woman succumbed to me, feeling sorry for me. Also, she found Louis mysterious, and liked that in men. "Wine," she offered Louis once we had stepped into the inn. Everyone stared at us as he refused it, along with the broth that she soon offered him as well.

The woman now found him boring, she didn't know what kind of man he was if he did not have a healthy appetite, so she left us.

I sighed in relief, glad she had lost interest. Suddenly I smelt something awful!

Louis sat down across from a drunk looking man.

"Do you speak English," he whispered to us.

"Yes, I do," Louis replied.

"And the girls," he gestured to me and Claudia with a drunken hand that soon fell back to his side.

"I do, but my sister doesn't," I answered for myself.

"You speak English," the man repeated, smiling. "Get out of this country, get out of it now. Take your carriage, your horses, drive them till they drop, but get out of it," he cautioned us.

The woman rudely interrupted our conversation, having heard the man mention something about us leaving "At dawn you can go." She wanted to get her money's worth out of Louis for having even entered her inn.

"Dawn," I gasped, afraid, "But ma'm, please cant we stay until sundown? I'm so exhausted!" I was not thinking when I said this; I said it purely out of fear. Ironic that by saying this I was trying to keep us from being discovered, but by saying this I had practically admitted something at least good enough to kills us all that very morning.

Lucky for me Louis intervened. "Hush," he mind-spoke to me, "Don't worry." He spoke aloud now, "Why must we leave so soon," he asked, "But what is it? Won't you tell me?" He spoke to the man, ignoring the woman completely.

"You want to see," he gasped, "Do you want to see for yourself?"

The woman intervened yet again. "But you must leave the children."

"One of my daughters will come," Louis bargained.

The woman grunted, but knew that there was nothing she could do to change Louis's mind. We followed them to a door. The man opened it for us. It looked like a small parlor. Only one candle burnt in the room. Louis reached out to me and held my hand. I gasped as my eyes fell upon the death woman. "She was drunk dry," I told Louis in mind speak. I didn't pay attention to what the man and Louis spoke of; I was too busy thinking of what a horrible person I was. From the moment that my eyes laid eyes upon this woman I had recognized her as a woman I had killed only hours before. Mind you, I don't remember every single woman that I kill, but she had been so recent that as I looked at her I saw the death in my mind. She had been wandering the street, almost like a mad person begging for death from every stranger that passed her way. So I had given it to her, like the cruel being that I was.

Soon enough Louis left.

I stayed with the man, wishing to speak wit him alone. "She knew she was going to die," I softly spoke to the drunken man without facing him, "She didn't want to suffer the illness of the plague."

"T-t-t-the plague," the man, Morgan, gasped. Suddenly he broke out in a scream as he scrambled madly to the back door. That sickness, that disease is exactly why he had come here, to get rid of it and to live I soon learned from his mind as he looked at the woman seconds before he burst towards the back door. As he jerked the door open, he looked back at me. Suddenly he ran to me and fell to one knee and kissed my forehead. "Thank you my angel," he whispered to me. With that, he left.


	14. Chapter 14

I went to Louis now and ran after him out of the odor of the inn. Soon enough we were in our carriage yet again. I looked up at Louis to see that he still had Morgan on his mind. I put my hand on top of his and smiled up at him. "He'll be ok," I reassured him, even though we both knew that he would die either from the plague or out of madness from his wife's death soon. I didn't like to lie to him, nor did I want to but I didn't know what else to say at the time.

Louis gave a modest smile and kissed my forehead. "You are probably right," he sighed as he relaxed a bit more. The next thing I knew, I heard Claudia say, "Would that I had your size and heart. Oh, Louis!" She kissed him as I watched enviously. I sensed danger and mind spoke to Claudia, "Not here."

Claudia sighed as she slowly slid out of Louis's lap. Soon she sensed the thing that I felt; danger.

"Such pretty little vampires," I heard something whisper into my ear as the carriage slowed to a stop. I noticed Claudia straighten her back and slowly begin to walk towards the stream that I didn't realize was there. As I followed her I failed to notice the stream, my eyes watching Claudia trying to keep track of her. Not seeing the stream I accidently fell into it. Not knowing how to swim I was swept up a small mountain.

Claudia had seen me fall in and immediately scaled the mountain, pulling up Louis as well to help him behind her.

I screamed, thrashing in the water. My scream bounced through the forest and reached Louis's ears. I knew then that this place had no life in it; otherwise something else would soon be coming towards my helpless screams.

Claudia was suddenly swept up in her own fears and had forgotten me. Louis knew he had to protect her, so he let the stream carry me down to the shore where I soon found a monastery. It was beyond all of the trees in the forest that had low walls and a high square top as well as a tower. I strained up to the stairs. "Dramana," I heard Louis gasp.

He ran to me and held me tightly to him. "You are so wet," he gasped. He took off his cape quickly and suavely. He took off my own and stripped me down to my undergarments. "You'll be cold," he said softly as he wrapped the cape around me. We entered the monetary together. "Pick a room, we'll rest here for a while," he whispered into my ear.

I led him to the confessions' room out of guilt and we rested there for a while. No one knew but while we were there my mind was racing with the many sins that I had committed as a vampire, hoping that the gods would forgive me for not letting even the words describing what I had done escape my lips, praying that they would forgive me even though I would not say them out loud in front of Louis. A single tear ran down my face. Suddenly Claudia ran to Louis's side and whispered something to him. Before I realized it, Louis and Claudia were under the set of stairs. Suddenly I felt something lift me up over its shoulder.

"Now you shall be MY little demon-child," it told me.

I sensed the loneliness coming from it. Before I could do anything, Louis had slain it and turned me away from it. I don't know what it was, but it was a nothing short of what children would call a monster. Suddenly I heard Morgan crying out to us. Obviously there had been more than one of these monsters, and one of them was after him. Blood tears foamed up into my eyes as I realized that it was my fault yet again. If I hadn't sent him away by telling him about the plague he might still have lived for a few more days.

We went to Transylvania next. But yet again, soon enough we moved on to Hungary and then after that, Bulgaria. We visited other countries and villages as well in between very briefly for a night or two. Soon enough we had ended up in a suburban hotel near Vienna.

Louis and Claudia were arguing again. "Don't think on it, Louis," Claudia sighed.

Louis had his arms around me, both hands upon my right shoulder and his left hand upon my left shoulder.

"Let me put your conscience at east, though I'll never know precisely what it is," Claudia seduced Louis stroking his hair.

"Do that," Louis sighed. It seemed that things would be all right for the night.

"I want no orphans such as ourselves," Claudia demanded, "I want answers, knowledge! But tell me, Louis, what makes you so certain that you've never done this without your knowing it?"

Louis turned to her utterly confused.

I watched in envy as Louis touched her hair then her lashes.

"After all, what makes those creatures," she asked.

"Leave Louis alone," I suddenly found myself shouting loudly. I couldn't take these fights any longer and my voice got away from me. I turned to face Claudia. "Do you really HAVE to know," I demanded.

"Yes," Claudia replied firmly.

"I know," I told her.

"Tell me," Claudia ordered.

"Lestat drained us and gave us back blood," I revealed to Claudia.

"The dark gift," Claudia hissed. "I hate it and I hate him," she screamed as she threw herself upon the table, creating a crack erupt through the table almost splitting it exactly in half. "Rest easy," Claudia silently prayed, "I tell you that as much as I hated Lestat-As much as I hated him we were……… complete."

"No, only you were complete," Louis realized, "Because there were two of us, one on either side of you, from the beginning."

"Now there are two of us, one on either wide of you," I confronted Louis as I reached up and took Louis's hand in mind.

Claudia smiled as she took Louis's other hand in hers. "Do you picture that as you say it, as you picture everything else," she asked.

I saw Louis remembering a night that he had spent with Claudia.

Blood tears formed in my eyes, both at the sad memory and out of jealousy.

"But we must get away from here," Claudia concluded, "From the roads behind us, from what I seeing your eyes now, because I give voice to thoughts which are nothing more to me than plain considerations."

"We must get out of here," I agreed, "its driving Claudia mad."

"Forgive me," Louis sighed, coming back to reality.

"No, you forgive me," Claudia begged, "No we forgive each other. But we don't forgive him, and without him you see what things are between us."

"It's not Lestat's-"I began.

"Don't say that name," Claudia mind-spoke to me.

"It's not his fault you two fight so," I defends him.

"Yes it is," Claudia blamed him, "You have always loved him. But nothing can change what he's done!"

"What has he don't that's so horrible," I questioned.

"Everything," Claudia shouted, "Making us, brining us together-"

"He made us because he loves us," I told her, "He loves us all. He brought us together so the one he loves most would stay with him. Try telling me you wouldn't do the same, that you wouldn't have done ANYTHING to keep your mother alive!"

Claudia silenced herself. "I tell you, I begin to understand that we have done it all wrong from the start. We must bypass Vienna. We need our language, our people. I want to go directly now to Paris."


	15. Chapter 15

The moment we stepped into Paris I fell in love with it. It felt like home somehow, though I'd never been there before. All of us were alive again and in love. Claudia and Louis no longer bickered as they had before, and Louis, Claudia and I were almost somewhat like a family. Yes; a family of vampires. Claudia had fell in love with a room at the Hotel Saint-Gabriel, on the Boulevard des Capucines. In the end I suppose we took it as our home. Claudia was almost as much as a brat as Lestat had been, only in a good way. Louis took me to Operas, ballets, the theatre, balls and receptions, gardens and galleries. We lived happily there for quite some time, until one night.


	16. Chapter 16

We were coming back from the theatre, when I sensed something, someone else- "I'll meet you at home," I told Louis.

Knowing my big appetite for hunting, Louis left me alone thinking that I was going out to hunt.

I walked mostly back to the theatre and on an open street, I saw him; the vampire I had sensed. "Who are you," I asked it a I allowed it to follow me onto a bridge.

"You are Claudia," he asked sadly.

"No, I am Dramana," I corrected him. I turned to him, "Do you know Claudia? How do you know of her?"

The vampire's eyes danced, "Dramana? You are THE Dramana," he asked excitedly.

"Yes, who are you," I said slowly.

"My name is Santiago. Your master is alive, Dramana," he informed me.

"Lestat,"I gasped softly. The memory of the flames burnt inside my mind.

Santiago smiled, "My master invites you to the Theatres des Vampires tomorrow night at nine o' one," he informed me. He handed me a note. "Don't tell the others, you are," he looked me in the eyes, "Special. After the show, meet me here. I'll escort you into the Theatre. Your master is there. He is safe. He needs rest, otherwise I would bring you tonight. Don't tell Louis or Claudia," he informed me.

"I wont," I understood.

"Until tomorrow," he told me before he disappeared.


	17. Chapter 17

The next night I went to the promised theatre. I didn't see anyone that might pose a threat to me, but I knew I was being watched by someone of my own kind. I had gotten there early and was examining the box office. Vampires were advertised upon it. This intrigued me. "They'd reveal themselves to mortals," I wondered. Eagerly I entered the theatre. The doorman inspected the invitation I had received and soon enough allowed me to enter. The theatre swarmed with humans. I appeared to be the only vampire present. My head was spinning from the delicious smell of blood, the many types of cologne of men and sensuous perfumes of women. I had fed upon a couple of women and a man before entering, so I wasn't exactly starving, but still, none the less I was like my master Lestat. I loved to kill and to feast upon human's blood, even, no, especially when I didn't have to. I hated killing, yet I loved the blood. I ran as slowly and as humanly possible up the stairs in the childish blood-red formal gown with roses sewn about the waist and a junior sized lace-like bodice that was really nothing but a long piece of red ribbon tied around my hips, tying in the back into a tight but cute bow that the ends of the ribbon that flowed down to about my knobby chicken-leg knees. There was lace decorating the long puffed-up skirt. The long sleeves were a shiny satin that cuffed tightly around my small wrists. My hair was tucked into a neat bun upon the top of my head close to the back of my head. It was tucked away with many bobby pins with ruby droplets art the end. I also wore a clear light red veil in front of my face to act as a mask so no one could see my face. It turns out that I had been given a balcony seat. Once I sat down I began to relax a little. There were less people here, so I could refrain more easily to ignoring them. I wasn't able to rest for long, sooner than I would have liked, people came flooding into the balcony. The seats around me filled up awkwardly fast. Suddenly one of my own kind approached me.

He smiled. He looked like an angel, a young one at that. He had red auburn hair and brown eyes.

I found myself drawn to him.

"May I offer you a booth," he offered, gesturing widely to a nearby, but remote balcony.

I nodded. "Yes, thank you," I accepted.

He offered me his arm.

I took it and we walked out of the balcony.

Once we were in the crowd of humans, he spoke to me, "Please forgive me. I had to make sure you were Dramana," he apologized, "You are indeed just as Lestat has described you."

"Lestat," I repeated, practically letting go of his harm because of the shock.

He had placed his hand on top of mine, securing me to him. "Yes, do not worry;" he reassured me as we turned a corner and he opened a door for me, "He is safe." He picked me up and placed me in my chair. "Santiago shall meet you after the show and escort you to my home, as planned," he instructed me.

"Then you must be- "I tried to say, but was cut off by his hand gently placed upon my mouth.

"My name is Armand," he introduced himself. Then he left me.

Just as the lights were dimming, I heard Santiago's voice in my mind, "Enjoy the show, princess."

A man stepped into my box. "Grape juice," He offered me.

I nodded. "Thank you," I said, smooth as velvet. I could smell it somehow, through the other enticing smells of human blood and could tell quite plainly that it wasn't grape juice that the man was offering me, but the juice of humans. It was blood, and it was fresh, only killed a few minutes ago. I sipped it lightly and looked out into the audience, seeing so many sparkling throats, fingers and wrists even. It was so shiny that I desired them desperately. I saw musicians moving to their positions with their instruments and knew that the show would be beginning very shortly. The silence of the audience was almost calming. Silence truly is golden. What broke the silence was a steady beat of a tambourine, soon joined by a melody of wooden flutes. Sharp bells soon began to ring in with them. I remember them so clearly, it was as if the bells were knives stabbing, slashing so quickly and suddenly that I flinched for the first few minutes. The sound of this melody was so medieval. I closed my eyes and could see kings a queens dancing to it at a feast. Every detail is still etched in my mind of that scene. It was as if I was there myself, really, a princess of the middle ages. What caused me to open my eyes was the sound of a flute, its music rising up to my box in the theatre.

"I play for you," I heard Santiago's voice in my mind, "Only for you."

I looked down from the box into Santiago's eyes. The curtain rose softly so I could barely hear it and the stage called my attention tit, away from Santiago. The lights brightened on the stage, revealing a forest. There were trees and leaves, even a river! It was hard to believe this was only a painting. While the audience erupted into applause, I noticed a dark draped figure moving quickly from tree trunk to tree trunk, creating magic like at a magic show. He revealed a mask in one hand and a silver scythe in the other. The mask was a painted skull. I could smell the once decaying human flesh on it. Now the undead wore the dead's bones! I found this incredibly crude. Wearing one's victims as if it might bring the life back, it's just crude. I remember wrinkling my nose at this while the crowd merely gasped. They would have done more than gasp if they had known how fresh that skull was or if the women in the front row knew that it had once belonged to her family tree to relatives from generations that she had never even had the chance to know in anything except a past life. An old woman walked onto the stage. She was stooped and bent with moss hair. She carried with her a small basket of flowers. She noticed the character that was supposedly the "grim reaper" and went to him.

He ran from her and she ran after him, begging for death.

I stood up wanting to help her. No that's not true. I wanted to kill her. I wanted to take her and drink their blood, even though she was probably the one who needed it more than I did at the time.

"She's only acting, look at her," Santiago told me, "She's one of us, you can't help her!"

I looked closely at the old women. She had such pale skin, whiter than snow white. She was beautiful so she couldn't possibly had been older than thirty nine. She was one of us! I sat back down in my chair. "I'm sorry, I almost destroyed your show," I mind-spoke back to Santiago, suddenly realizing what a reckless fool I had been. I had almost revealed myself, everything would have ended. I would have been taken to a lab and studied like some vile rodent that carried the plague. I soon forgot my mistake and looked back at the stage. Nothing was there except for a woman standing alone on the stage. She had long auburn hair and shining blue eyes. She was a beautiful virgin. She couldn't have been older than twenty six. She was so beautiful that she had caught the eye of death himself. As soon as the woman caught sight of death she ran from him as quickly as she could. Yet she only ran into a crow of women. These women were vampires.

"Who are you," the woman asked softly. So softly in fact that I was positive that I was the only one in the audience who could hear her. How sad.

"We are death," the grim reaper answered plainly.

"I'm scared," she whispered a bit louder. She turned to the leader vampire who had now drifted onto the stage.

"Armand," I whispered immediately recognizing him. "Wait a second, Armand," I thought to myself suddenly remembering the night that I had met Marius in the tavern, "Marius, I think I found your Armadeo!" I gasped as my eyes went wide, realizing just who he was. The show beckoned me from my thoughts as Armand spoke, "We all fear something. What is it that frightens you?"

The woman ran into Armand's arms. "Death," she whispered in his ear, "Dyeing before it is my time."

"We all die," he answered her; "The one thing you share with every mortal is death."

"I don't care….. I'm not afraid," she protested, "I should be able to die in peace when it is my time!"

"How do you know you have so many years? Death is no respecter of age! There could be a sickness in your body now, already devouring you from within. Or, outside a man might be waiting to kill you," Armand pointed out, "Need I tell you what fate may have in store for you? And if you do take that chance and live, live for years, what would be your heritage? The humpbacked toothless visage of old age? Just as sure as this flesh is pink, it will turn gray, wrinkled with age."

"I'll take my chances," the woman hissed turning from Armand, turning her back on him.

Armand shook his head at her. "And suppose we were to let you go…" Armand grasped the woman's clothes and tore them off in haste, "Suppose the grim reaper had a heart that could resist your beauty…. To whom would he turn his passion? Someone must die in your place. Would you pick the person for us? The person to stand here and suffer as you suffer now? Have you a sister……a mother…… a child. Surely someone could take your place, a friend? Choose!"

"M-my sister," the girl stammered, "S-s-she has golden blonde hair is all, and is young, a virgin."

"Unconscious death," Armand stated, "the fate of all mortals." Armand took a step towards the girl on stage and she rushed towards the other vampires. "Hmmm… but we are conscious death! That would make you, a bride. Do you know what it means to be loved by Death? Do you know what it means to have Death know your name?" He asked.

The vampires around her began to chant, "No pain."

The woman had now fallen back to the protection of Armand. The woman lay in his arms.

I could tell that she was now under his power. I wanted to cry out to her, to break her swoon; I wanted her; wanted her as she cried out as he sank his teeth. I felt tired, petrified, hunger raising in me, knotting my heart, my veins. I clung to my chair for the rest of the performance. Even before the lights came on again, I left my box. By the time the lights were slowly coming to a dim I was making my way down the stairs. Once they were lit I was showing myself the way out. I did not delay and went directly to the bridge. Once I reached it he was already there. "Did I keep you waiting, monsieur," I called to him.

"Not long," Santiago replied, "Come with me." We walked down along a deep stairway until we were beneath the city. There we met Armand.

"Amusing performance," I complemented him.

"You wouldn't call it evil," Armand questioned me.

I shook my head. "No," I admitted, "Amusing, yes. Evil, no. Not really, no."

"We'll continue this conversation once we are inside," Armand told me as he offered me his arm. The air grew cool and refreshing with the fragrance of water, and I could see the droplets bleeding through the stones like beads of gold in the light of the vampire's candle. It was a small chamber we entered, a fire burning in a deep fireplace cut into the stone wall. A bed lay at the other end, fitted into the rocks and enclosed with two brass gates. I saw a long wall of books opposite the fireplace and the wooden desk that was against it, and the coffin to the other side. Armand picked me up suddenly and sat me in a leather chair. On the bed lay a sleeping human boy. He had blonde hair that was short and curly. There was something disturbing to me in the room, and I didn't know what it was. "You won't awaken the boy if you speak," Armand told me, "You've come from so far, you've traveled so long. I welcome you to my house. But how did you come to exist?"

"My master," I said trailing off, remembering the fight Lestat and I had had about why he had made me.

"You don't want to answer," said Armand, his voice low and even more measured then Claudia's voice, far less human than my own.

"I'm sorry," I said softly, "I was made by my master Lestat-" I broke off remembering that Santiago had told me his master, the leader would bring me to Lestat, "Are you Santiago's master? The leader?"

"Not in the way you mean leader," he answered, "but if there were a leader here, I would be that one. If I told you I did have such power would you respect it?"

"Yes," I said, looking at a picture on the wall.

"That is a picture," he said, looking slightly over his shoulder at it.

"Nothing more," I questioned, seeing much more than a mere picture. I saw metaphors and symbols, meaning in this piece of art.

"Nothing more," he agreed, "And could we be the children of Satan? Do you believe that Satan made this world around you?"

"Possibly," I said softly, "Some things most possibly, yes. But first Satan had to be created by god."

"Exactly, and consequently if you believe God made Satan you must realize that all Satan's power comes from God and that Satan is simply God's child and that we are God's children also. There is no child of Satan, really. But why dose this concern you? Surely what I say doesn't surprise you. Why do you let it affect you," Armand asked.

"It concerns me solely for religious purposes," I stated, "To tell you the truth, I don't really know why it affects me, it just dose." I looked into his eyes, searching for understanding.

"I understand," Armand reassured me comfortingly, "I saw you in the theatre, your suffering, your sympathy for the old women. I saw your sympathy for the women who sought death. But why with this passion and this sense of justice, do you wish to call yourself the child of Satan!"

"I'm not," I shouted, "I'm the daughter of Lestat, just like any vampire! I'm just as evil and dead as any other!"

"Why dose that make you as evil as any vampire? Aren't there gradations of evil," Armand questioned, 'is evil a great perilous gulf into which one falls with the first sin, plummeting to the depth?"

"Look, I'm just like you," I began to explain, or, rather, try and explain.

"But you're not being fair," he pointed out, "We are not at all the same! Surely you attribute great degrees and variations to goodness. There is the goodness of the child which is innocence."

"Are there more people with this goodness," I questioned, wondering if I myself was the only vampire with goodness.

"There is the goodness of the monk who has given up everything to others and lives a life of self deprivation and service. The goodness of saints, the goodness of good housewives," Armand listed, "Are all these the same?"

I looked up at Armand. "No," I admitted, "They are different, just like the evils."

"And how is this evil achieved," he asked, "How dose one fall from grace and become in one instant evil as the mob tribunal of the Revolution or the cruelest of the Roman emperors? Dose one merely have to miss Mass on Sunday, or bite down on the Communion Host? Or steal a loaf of bread… or sleep with a neighbor's wife?"

"It can be achieved in many ways," I began, "one begins a steady fall from grace with one mere doing. Gradually you have fallen."

"But if evil is without graduation, and dose exist, this state of evil then only one sin is needed. Isn't that what you are saying? That god exists... then no sin matters. No sin achieves evil." He sat back as if for the moment stopped, his large eyes narrowing, and then fixing on the depths of the fire. This was the first time since he had come for me that he had looked away from me, and I found myself looking at him unwatched. For a long time he sat in this manner and I could all but feel his thoughts, as if they were palpable in the air like smoke. Nor read them, you understand, but feel the power of them. It seemed he possessed an aura and even though his face was very young, which I knew meant nothing, he appeared infinitely old, wise. I could not define it, because I could not explain how the youthful lines of his face, how his eyes expressed innocence and this age and experience at the same time. "This is the only real evil left," he said to the flames.

"Not the only one," I pointed out, "But surely one of them, yes."

"It's true," he said, shocking me, deepening my sadness, my despair.

"Yet there isn't one vampire who hasn't fallen from grace because of one of the goddesses," I mused.

"None," he said, "no vampire that I've ever known. And as far as I know today, after four hundred years, I am the oldest living vampire in the world."

Suddenly I remembered Marius. "No are you aren't," I began softly, 'your master is alive. You are Marius's son, aren't you?" I saw the shock on Armand's face, showing the evidence that I needed. My answer had been given. He was the one. "He's alive, Armand, and he's looking for you," I told him.

"He's alive," he smiled, "your master, Lestat told me. I should meet with him again, soon." He stood up. "It's time I reunite you with yours," he told me; "He's spoken of nothing but you three, but told me to find you before the others."

I stopped suddenly, "Why?"

Armand sighed softly. He looked at me and I knew.

"You plan on killing them, don't you," I said suspiciously.

"They have attempted to murder their master," Armand began to explain; "They must pay. Lestat is against it, so place don't discuss this with anyone, especially him or Louis or Claudia."

Before I could protest I saw the little boy again.

He was awake. He blushed as he offered me his wrist. There were bite marks on his wrist already. He blushed a bright read.

I looked from Armand to the boy, confused. "This boy, he's" I stammered to Armand.

Armand smiled, "My slave, yes. His name is Lentan. I go to the orphanage about every week or so and adopt a new boy."

The boy went to Armand and clung to his arm, hiding behind it shyly.

'He's fallen for you, Dramana," Armand mused, "You look thirsty. Take a small drink. It won't kill him. He wants you to."

Lenton held out his left wrist to me again.

I smiled at Lenton as I took his wrist gently in my hands, cradling it, feeling the warmth, the life coming off of it. "May I," I asked him sweetly.

He nodded slowly, blushing a bright ruby red. He was at a loss of words and couldn't even speak!

I cradled his wrist before quickly sinking my teeth. I did this as quickly as possible as to not hurt the innocent boy. I drank as little as I could as quickly as I could. I resisted my desire to drink all of his blood and kill him as I released him. Once I felt I could face him again, I did. "Thank you, Lenton," I thanked him.

Armand smiled at him, "Come, Lestat awaits."


	18. Chapter 18

Santiago was waiting for us at the door. Armand on my right and Santiago on my left, we walked into the ballroom.

Two women ran up to us.

Santiago tugged my arm and we stepped away from Armand.

The women greeted him. Several women vampires had gathered around Armand, and I felt a tumult of feelings as I saw them put their arms around his waist, and what appalled me as I watched was not their exquisite form, their delicate features or graceful hands made hard as glass by vampiric nature or their bewitching eyes which fixed on me now in a sudden silence: what appalled me was my own fierce jealousy.

He kissed them both, and that flamed up my jealousy so much that I turned away from them, getting ready to leave and being so lost in my own jealousy that I had forgotten why I was there. I had forgotten someone I love most, my own master, Lestat.

Santiago turned around to show me that they were coming towards me. And, as he brought them near me now, I was unsure and confused.

"Oh a doll," one cried. They ran towards me. "Armand who's this little one?" "Oh Armand you really didn't have to get us a present. You know how we love dolls!"

I had begun to get a bit scared that they really did think I was their doll. I didn't want to be a doll, not again. So I spoke up, "I'm not a doll."

They gasped. "Did the doll speak," one of them asked. They were clearly confused.

"No, she's not a doll, this is Dramana. She is a vampire child," Armand exclaimed.

"Really," they gasped, reaching out to touch me.

"Cant you see that I'm one of you," I asked, confused at how dumbfounded these women could be.

They smiled. "My name is Estelle, this is Celeste, we are blind," the woman to the right of me said. "May we touch you," Celeste asked, reaching out for me.

"What," I asked, confused.

"We want to see what you look like," Estelle explained, "You see it's the only way we can see, with our hands. We can picture you in our minds if we can feel your figure. We guessed that Armand had brought us a doll because he told us that there was a little girl in front of us."

"Oh, I see," I said softly, not quite understanding everything. "Yes, you may touch me," I allowed her. I reached out my hand and took Celeste's right hand first and placed it on the side of my face, my right cheek. I reached out to Estelle next, taking her right hand and placing it on my other cheek. I took her left hand and, blushing, placed it on my chest so she could see my dress. I was ashamed of my body, caught in time not maturing or changing. I know I will never have a womanly figure, not her breasts, hips, or curves. I will never grow up.

"Your hair is so soft," Celeste told me.

"And your gown is so fine," Estelle added.

"Thank you," I thanked them as blood tears ran down my eyes softly. That was when I realized that I didn't need a womanly figure. My childish body was perfectly cute. They both felt my entire body and I welcomed the attention.

Estelle took me in her arms and carried me to a pair of leather chairs. She sat down with me in her lap.

I found myself sitting in a gallery. The dim lights of the house were mandatory, and the paintings appreciated in full, added to almost nightly when some vampire brought a new engraving or picture by a contemporary artist into the house.

Celeste began the conversation, "Men painted these. We do not make as many horrors as them. They're capable of greater evil."

"No," I sighed softly, "I think I've done far worse than men have."

Celeste threw back her black curls and laughed. "What can be imagined can be done! Of course, we strive to rival men in skills of all kinds, do we not?"

Santiago entered the room. He took a seat with us.

"You two are from France," I laughed, "you've clearly lived here all of your lives! You are lucky to have a home to not need to disguise yourselves…"

Santiago spoke, "Come here. Live with us and such disguise is unnecessary. We have our guards. And tell ms, where do you come from," he said dropping to his knees, his hand on the arm of the chair which Estelle sat in, "your voice. I know that accent. Speak again."

I was vaguely horrified at the thought of having an accent to my French, but this wasn't my immediate concern. "I will, some time again," I told him, "I can't live here right now. I live with my Louis and Claudia."

"Did they help you pick out that dress," Estelle asked.

"No, why," I slowly cautiously asked.

"Because it's beautiful, but tasteless. It should be black. Black is the color for vampires' clothes. We blend with the night. We have a funeral gleam. Armand told me that it was red. Red is not the color for vampires," she critiqued relentlessly. We all laughed.

Celeste walked over behind me. "Ah, but to cover up such curls," she said as she began to unpin my hair, a new strand of hair coming loose with every pin that she pulled.

And I realized what must have been so obvious: that all of them had dyed their hair black, but for Armand; and it was that, along with the black clothes that added to the disturbing impression that we were statures from the same chisel and paint brush. It seemed to stir something in me deep inside, something I couldn't fully grasp. I found myself wandering away from them to one of the narrow mirrors and began to watch them all over my shoulder. "Monsters, what have they to do with us," I asked, remembering the monster that had attacked me.

"Revenants," Armand answered softly over the distance, "Their blood is different, vile. They increase as we do but without skill or care. In the old days-" The room fell silent as he abruptly stopped.

I could see his face in the mirror. It was strangely rigid.

"Oh, but tell us about the old days," said Celeste, her voice shrill, at human pitch. There was something vicious in her tone.

And now Santiago took up the same baiting manner. "Yes, tell us of the covens and the herbs that would render us invisible." He smiled, "and the burning at the stake!"

"Beware those monsters," Armand told me, ignoring the others, "Those revenants. They will attack you as if you were human."

My head was spinning, a common mortal headache. So I sat down on the ground. I turned around to see Armand.

He seemed remote from the others now though he nodded often enough and uttered a few words here and there so that he seemed a part of them, his hand only occasionally rising from the lion's paw of his chair.

My heart expanded when I saw him this way, saw that no one amongst the small throng caught his glance as I caught his glance, and no one had it from time to time as I held it. "There's no crime amongst you," I guessed. I turned back to the mirror.

"Crime! Boredom," cried out Estelle, and she pointed a white finger at Armand. Her violet eyes seemed fixed on me, even in the mirror as I stood with my back to her.

Armand laughed softly with her from his distant position at the end of the room.

"Boredom is death," she cried and bared her vampire fangs so that Armand put a languid hand to his forehead in a stage gesture of fear and falling.

But Santiago, who was watching with his hands behind his back, intervened. "Crime," he said, "Yes, there is a crime. A crime for which we would hang another vampire down until we destroyed him. Can you guess what that is? You should know. Who are so secretive?" A hush fell over the room, gradually, then completely, all those white faces turned to face Santiago as he stood there one foot forward, his hands clasped behind his back, towering over Estelle. His eyes gleamed as he saw he had the floor. He kissed Estelle, making it all too obvious to me that the two were lovers, and then he broke away and crept up behind me, putting his hand on my shoulder. "Can you guess what that crime is? Didn't your vampire master tell you," he whispered in my ear. And drawing me slowly around with those invading familiar hands, tapped my heart lightly in time with its quickening pace. "It is the crime that means death to any vampire anywhere who commits it. It is to kill your own kind," he told me.

I remained silent.

Armand was laughing to distract the others, and Santiago was still.

"But they didn't," I sobbed, remembering, "He's alive. Lestat's alive. Where is he?!"

Armand smiled, "Come," he told me with outstretched arms.

I walked to him and he took me into his arms.

He carried me into a closed room.

And that is when I saw Lestat- the blow that was more crippling than any blow.

Lestat standing there in the center of the ballroom erect his gray eyes sharp and focused, his mouth lengthening into a cunning smile. Impeccably dressed he was, as always and as splendid in his rich black cloak and fine linen. But those scars still scored every inch of his white flesh, and how they distorted the taunt, handsome face, the fine hard threads cutting the delicate skin above his lip, the lids of his eyes, the smooth rise of his forehead. And the eyes, they burned with silent sorrow that said, "I'm not beautiful anymore."

"Lestat," I gasped.

He opened his eyes and looked up at me.

"Lestat," I screamed as I launched myself out of Armand's arms and onto the ground. The second my feet hit the ground I ran to him and threw myself upon him, throwing my arms around him as I sobbed, "you've alive you're alive!" I sobbed these words over and over as blood tears spewed from my eyes uncontrollably. I felt Lestat put his arms around me and he held me.

"Of course I'm alive, my dear, dear Dramana," he reassured me as my crying was coming to a slow stop, "I'm Lestat. Of course I'm alive! I told you we'd meet again."

"But how," I gasped, "How did you survive the flames?"

"Your blood sustained me," Lestat admitted, "And Armand's, Magnus's, Marius's as well as Akasha's."

"But your wounds are still there," I gasped as I yanked my sleeve up and thrust it into his face. "Drink."

Lestat gently grasped my arm and sank his teeth mercilessly. He drank and fed off of me that night.

I passed out sooner than expected.


	19. Chapter 19

When I awoke I was in Armand's room again.

He was busy with his human boy who was dining at the desk on a silver plate of meats and fish. A decanter of red win stood next to him and though he was feverish and weak, his skin was florid and his heat and fragrance were a torment to me.

The boy filled his glass and held it up now in salute. "Dramana," he said, his eyes flashing on me as he smiled.

"Your slave," Armand whispered with a deep intake of breath that was passionate. And he watched as the boy drank deeply.

I could see him too as well as myself, savoring the wet lips, the mobile flesh of the throat as the wine went down.

And now the boy took a morsel of white meat, making the same salute, and consumed it slowly, his eyes fixed on me.

Armand and I feasted upon the feast, drinking in that part of life which we could not share any longer except with our eyes. It was calculated and torture to me while to Armand it was but only calculated. I longed to have the ability to consume the meats that he ate now. I missed the rich steaks and chickens that my mother used to cook. Now I will never devour them again. When the boy had finished, somehow our eyes met, for he had been staring at me and I watching him; it was inevitable really.

He walked up to me, the wine obviously having encouraged him and all the while we had kept eye contact with one another like distant lovers. Suddenly he leaned forward and kissed me, placing his mortal lips upon my dead ones. His body collapsed soon enough, leaving me there somewhat shocked. Finally it was finished.


	20. Chapter 20

Lenton was to sleep, and in minutes, he was dozing, and Armand opposite me, his large beautiful eyes tranquil and seemingly innocent.

He regarded me with great wonder.

But I was weak, too weak for his wonder and I took my leave.

By the time I reached home, I simply got into Louis's coffin with him and went to sleep. The next night I took a pair of twins prey before going to see Armand again.

Armand greeted me with a warm embrace and a romantic kiss.

I sat in his lap as he stroked my hair. "You'd never do anything to me, would you Armand," I softly sighed.

"I would not try to do anything to you," he said calmly, "But as I told you, I am not the leader here in the sense that you asked. I'm more powerful than Santiago, older. Santiago is younger than you are." His voice was simple, devoid of pride. There are facts. "It's begun," he said. He seemed to be thinking now, his eyes casting down, his chin resting on his closed fist.

"What's begun," I questioned, "Why?"

"We are getting too attached to you," Armand admitted, "My coven and I, Santiago, Celeste, Estelle and Lenton." "I could give you reasons," he said, "You provide good conversation. You are nice to talk to. Truly, it seems we can tell you any thing, say anything in your presence. You are very beautiful, not simply in our vampiric way, nor in a childish or child's way. But you are truly beautiful. More beautiful, I believe, than Lestat could ever predict you to be, more beautiful than even Celeste and Estelle combined. Your hair is so soft and smooth, always so well done, always wearing the finest pins in it. Truly, Celeste is jealous of your beauty, you are so beautiful."

I blushed a light pale red. "I only speak my mind," I tried to be modest, "Only staying, going along with the topic put before me."

"It would have perhaps have been better all around if you had said nothing," he said, smiling, for his obviously wanted me to absorb these complements, and he had meant what he had said.

I sat reflecting upon what he'd said, and what weighed as heavily upon me through all of it were those monsters I had encountered in the East. I felt an overwhelming desire to speak to him of these things; of my fear. I made my way out of Armand's lap and into the chair across from him. I looked him in the eyes.

His eyes said, learn.

And oh, how much I wanted to confined to him the, all I didn't understand; how searching all these years, I'd been astonished to discover those vampires above had made of immortality a club of fads and cheap conformity. What had I expected? "Those monsters in the East," I spoke, "Could we possibly live in peace, together as one coven?"

"Listen to me," he said now. "You must stay away from them. Your face hides very little when you show fear of them. You would yield to me now were I to question you. Look into my eyes."

I didn't do this. I fixed my eyes firmly on one of those small paintings above his desk until it ceased to be the Madonna and Child and became a harmony of line and color. Because I knew what he was saying to me was true. I could hear him sigh, faintly.

"They are after you, Dramana," he warned me, "They have stalked your every move since you were captured by them." "I have stopped them for the time being," he said, "But I don't want such power over them as would be necessary to stop them entirely, because if I exercise such power, then I must protect it. I will make enemies. And I would have forever to deal with my enemies when all I want here is a certain space, a certain peace, or not to be here at all. I accept the scepter of sorts they've given me, but to rule over them, only to keep them at a distance. Do you want to be killed?"

"No," I answered quickly.

"Then you must stay away from them, and stay close to me and my coven," he told me, "Celeste has a great deal of power, being one of the oldest, and she is fond of you, and likes your beauty a great deal. And Santiago, as you can see, is only waiting around every corner to escort you to your destination."

I turned slowly and looked at Armand again while he sat with that eerie vampire stillness, as if he were in fact not alive at all. The moment lengthened. I heard his words, just as if he were speaking them again. "You are indeed, just as Lestat has described you." And I felt a longing for him so strong that it took all my strength to contain it, merely to sit there gazing at him, fighting it. I could see Armad greeting Celeste and Estelle again, remembering the love that they obviously shared. It was an icon for me of love. The love I felt. Not physical love, you must understand. For vampires physical love cumulates and is satisfied in one thing, the kill. I speak of another kind of love which drew me to him completely as with Lestat. Knowledge would never be withheld by Armand. I knew it. I shut my eyes. And I thought I heard him speak, so faintly I wasn't certain. It seemed he said, "Do you know why I am here?" I looked up at him again, wondering if he knew my thoughts. Could he actually read them, if such could conceivably be the extent of that power; a sadness pervaded it al, sadness for my own weakness and my own awful dilemma. Claudia waited for me.

"They don't matter to you," he said.

"But they do," I argued, "Claudia, my vampire sister and my Louis. They matter so much."

"You love them," Armand pointed out.

I smiled and nodded.

"What is it you want to do," He asked. And his voice assumed the most gentle, sympathetic tone.

"Kill those monsters so I have nothing to fear," I decided.

He shook his head. "And I know your loneliness even with her love is almost more terrible than you can bear," he informed me.

I stood up them. "It'll be even worse when she's gone," I pointed out, "I'm going to spend time with her, while I still can."


	21. Chapter 21

"Don't go," Armand said.

"I am," I told him. I was in the passage when I heard him so close to me that I was startled.

He stood beside me, picked me up so he was eye level with my eyes, and in his hand he held a key which he pressed into my hand. "There is a door there," he said, gesturing to the dark end which I'd thought to be merely a wall, "And a stairs to the side street which no one uses but myself. Go this way now, so you can avoid the others. They'll try and get you to stay, forever."

I turned to go at once.

"But let me tell you this," he said and lightly he grabbed my wrist, "use the power inside you. Don't abhor it anymore. Use that power! And when they see you in the streets above, use that power to make your face a mask and think as you fight them. Take those words as if it were a gift I'd given you to have. And when you encounter one of those monsters, hit them as hard as you can. Remember what I say. I speak to you simply because I love you. You understand this. That is your strength."

I took the key from him and left. The second I ascended the stairs I was surrounded by those monsters. The loneliness coming from these monsters was overwhelming me. "Why have you stalked me," I hissed at them.

"You are a demon-child unlike any other," one began.

"We sense the loneliness you feel," another said.

"We need you," another insisted.

"We love you," another lied as one attempted to pick me up.

I rolled, barley missing the monster's arm. I stood up and ran as fast as I could around to each monster and punched each one as hard as I could.

Their claw like fingers ripped my dress to shreds as they closed in around me.

So I jumped high into the air and, as gravity pulled me down, I grabbed a large group of hair, pulling one down to the ground.

Another beside it sank its teeth into my arm.

I smacked it on the head as hard as I could. Thanks to that, it released me, leaving two big fangy whole marks on my arm in between my wrist and elbow.

More came at me and all I can remember is that I just kept hitting them.

I was all healed by the time I went to see Claudia.


	22. Chapter 22

That night Claudia and I took countless women victim, taking Claudia's sorrow, anger, frustration and jealousy out on them. When we got home I climbed into the coffin with Louis. The next night, Louis and I were walking together to get away from Claudia for a little while.

Louis suddenly turned and ran as fast as he could.

I ran after him, worried.

Louis tripped on a fallen roof tile and I ran as fast as I could to catch him. He got in front of me and rounded a sharp corner and I followed.

I caught up with him and we returned to our normal walk for a little while, but then he hesitated right before the turn, in front of a house.

I heard the house begging to collasp. "Louis, move," I cried as I pushed him just as it all collapsed. Only one tile barely brushed his shoulder while I had to run as fast as I could in order not to be squashed by the house. I wasn't going to be squished by a house falling. I'm no witch, sorry, wrong story. Anyways, suddenly I saw Santiago standing there.

He was playing mirror with Louis.

"Clever," Louis said, Santiago echoing him. He gave a small smile and of course Santiago smiled back. Louis stepped forward, so did he.

Surprisingly enough, Santiago lifted his right arm slowly, while Louis didn't. Then he mocked Louis by beating his fist upon his own chest in an almost perfect rhytem of Louis's heartbeat.

"Stop it," I mind-spoke to him angrily.

He laughed, proving to me that he wouldn't dare stop. His laugh said to me, "Stop? Why stop? This is so amusing. Why would I stop?" He threw back his head, showing his canine teeth, and the laughter seemed to fill the alleyway.

"You mean me harm," Louis asked, getting the result of Santiago mocking.

"He dose, let's go Louis," I begged him.

"Trickster, Buffoon," Louis stood his ground.

Santiago stopped laughing now finally. His face went hard.

It scared me.

"Let's go Dramana," he agreed as we turned our backs to him and began to walk away.

Before I knew what was happening, he was in front of us again. He stood in the lamplight.

"I've been looking for you," Louis said, "I've come to Paris looking for you!"

Santiago moved forward, slowly and gracefully. He tricked Louis, making him think he was trying to be polite and shake his hand, instead pushing him.

I ran behind Louis and caught him, pushing him gently back onto his own two feet.

Santiago tried again, again I caught him.

Louis soon began fighting for himself, I couldn't protect him.

It tore me in half that I couldn't help him.

Louis went to Santiago with both arms out, missing.

Santiago flung Louis down.

I knew it was his fight, not mine. Still, I shook with rage at Santiago.

Santiago placed his foot on Louis's ribs.

"Don't hurt him," I snarled at Santiago, giving Louis the distraction he needed.

He grabbed his foot and I ran at him as fast I could, slamming my body into Santiago's, slamming him into the stone wall.

He snarled at Louis and tried to get at him, probably thinking that it was Louis's fault somehow that I attacked him now. He didn't realize how torn I was with friend and love, yes, him being my friend and I loved, no, love, Louis.

I punched him in the bottom of his chin, not letting him hurt Louis.

He wrestled with Louis, toppling over him and getting free from Louis's grasp and grabbing his shoulders as he threw himself into a s summersault over Louis. When he finished his complete summersault, he held Louis off the ground. He flung him several yards from where we were, knocking Louis unconscious. He got hold of Louis again and I punched out his knee caps, catching Louis.

"Louis," I could barely gasp, getting him to regain consciousness, "Louis, wake up! Wake up! Now!!" I shook him. "Get up," I screamed, "you are all right!"

Louis got to his feet, ready to fight, but there was no longer any fight to be fought. There was no one in sight to fight with.

"We are invited to the theatres des Vampires," I told him, handing him the card Santiago had left.

Louis fainted, and I carried him home.


	23. Chapter 23

The next night Claudia, Louis and I got ready to go. "Wear this Louis," I suggested as I referred to an outfit I had picked out for him. It was an all black suit with gloves and a felt-brimmed hat. It matched my black silk dress with black roses along the neckline, shoulders, wrist, waist and hemline of the skirt. It was fun to wear matching outfits with Louis and Claudia. "And Claudia can wear this," I gestured to a low v-cut dress that was much like mine only lover cut, an inch shorter, tighter and has no back. Claudia preferred to dress as a woman would those days.

"Yes, that sounds good," Louis said smiling at me.

"No," Claudia refused, "I want to wear this!" She appeared in her lavender miniskirt with a pale lavender skirt layered under that one with a strapless heart cut shirt that glittered. Around her neck she wore a dark lavender droplet. On her wrist were purple glass beads of different shades, giving a nice pattern to it all. She wore a few purple diamond rings on her fingers as well. Her shoes that she chose were a pair of dark, almost black lavender thin heeled strappy sandals that clicked loudly when she walked.

"Ok, then just Louis's and my outfits will match tonight," I gave in, "Let's curl our hair, Claudia!"

Claudia nodded and we dashed into the bathroom leaving Louis to dress.

"I can't believe you still like to dress as a child," Claudia mused as she helped me curl my hair, "And matching outfits?!" She laughed. We let my curls sit as I reached for a lovely looking bottle of perfume.

"I like to," I shrugged, "I think it's rather fun." The bottle was a dark red that smelled of life and death. I lightly spritsed my neck with it hoping Louis would comment on it and like it, as any woman would hope that her current love interest would.

"But don't you think adult thing would be fun too," Claudia asked.

"I suppose," I said as I sleeted a nice bright red lipstick to use, "It really depends really."

"On what," Claudia laughed. She obviously thought everything "adult" was "fun."

"On what it is," I said plainly before I put the lipstick on my lips.

"What about growing up, maturing," Claudia asked, "Don't you want to grow up?"

"No, not really," I admitted as I rubbed my lips together as a woman did.

"Really," Claudia demanded, "Not at all? Not even a pinch, in the slightest? Seriously, you never ever ever ever want to grow up?"

"No not really," I gave the same answer again without realizing it.

"You don't want a woman's body," Claudia gasped, "you don't want even small breasts, or to go through a menses even once in your eternal life time?! You don't want to be pursued by men to bed with them or have children of your own, or be wed to Louis?" She paused as she saw the flicker of interest at Louis's name. She smirked. "You do want to wed Louis, don't you," she tortured me; "You do want to become a woman that Louie would want to pursued. You do want him to love you as a man loves a woman. You do want to bed wit him, to bear his children, to grow old together, to die in his arms."

Blood tears ran down my face as she tormented me.

"I know," Claudia whispered, "I want to too." We curled Claudia's hair in silence.


	24. Chapter 24

Claudia chose a seducing woman's perfume and lipstick. We uncurled my hair and I left Claudia to admire herself alone.

As soon as I saw Louis I couldn't help but cry. Claudia's words echoed in my mind.

He wrapped his arms around me, "Why are you crying," He whispered gently to me, "Is it what Claudia said?"

I gasped, "How did you know?"

He smiled at me. "I heard you two talking," he told me, "You may not be able to do any of those things, but still know that I love you." He kissed me softly."

The Theatres de Vampires was by invitation only that night. The doormen inspected our card for a moment while the rain fell softly around us.

Louis pulled me close him to the safety of his coat.

People as always, were looking at the posters on the box office. Couples presses past us, separating Louis and I.

In that second Armand came up and whispered to me, "Go, find me a victim that I might use. Fine me the sister of the women whom you saw us kills."

I turned around and nodded.

He kissed me, sending me the picture of her that I needed. It was the picture that the women had given him when he had bitten into her.

Softly and quickly I found this girl.

She was a majestic, tall and all but enshrined by a voluminous mane of golden blonde hair. Her face was as beautiful and finely chiseled as the face of a marble virgin that her hair barely veiled. She had gray eyes. She wore a simple blouse and skirt. She was obviously poor.

I simply knocked her out and dragged her to the theatre.


	25. Chapter 25

The victim's outfit was splattered with mud but her face remained flawless. I pulled the key to the door out of my pocket and brought her into the ballroom.

Armand was there awaiting me and the damsel. He quickly took the girl from me and took her to the stage.

I myself left and went to find Louis and Claudia. I used my acute senses to find Louis and Claudia. I found them, finding Louis's hand lightly pressed on Claudia's hand. Jealousy bubbled in me as I sat in Louis's lap.

He didn't look at me, but only continued to watch as the play went on.

Claudia softly laughed at the girl, Armand's prey that I had brought for him.

I felt anger and hate in Louis's veins. I gripped his wrist, hard, forcing him to look at me. "Her fate is to die," I insisted.

Louis gave me an angry glare. Movement on the stage caught his attention, and he turned away from me.

I looked too. It was practically the same show I had seen the first time I had been there. "Santiago, you can't hurt Louis," I mind spoke to him.

"Why not," he asked.

"Because I love him," I told him.

"And you don't love me," he bean to get angry, "You love him more than me?!" It was amazing how well he could do both the show and speak to me at the same time. He was angry, frustrated even. He also portrayed his frustration on the stage.

I watched him, and to my surprise I found him infatuated with her, holding her gaze. In jealousy, I broke it, calling her attention to me. As he all but kissed her face my jealousy raged.

"Do you know what it means to have Death know your name," he asked.

She looked at him, overcome with fear. And then her eyes seemed to mist over, her lips to go slack. She was staring past him at the figure of another vampire who had emerged slowly from the shadows. For along time he had stood on the periphery of the gathering, his hands clasped, his large, dark eyes very still. His attitude was not the attitude of hunger. He did not appear rapt. But she was looking into his eyes now and her pain bathed her in a beauteous light, a light which made her irresistibly alluring. It was this that held the jaded audience, this terrible pain.

The women she was, the woman I would never be, began to haunt me. At the same time I knew she had no chance. And looking up again, I saw her shimmering in the smoky light of the foot lamps, saw her tears like gold, as softly from Armand who I could see clearly now, come the words, "No pain."

He had been the still one in the background.

Santiago stiffened, but only I seemed to notice it.

They only saw the girl's smooth, childlike face, those parted lips, slack with innocent wonder as she gazed at Armand.

"No pain," she repeated.

"Your beauty is a gift to us," Armand's rich voice effortlessly filled the house, seeming to calm the audience. That is one of the many things that I love and admire about him. And lightly, almost imperceptibly, his hand moved.

Santiago was receding, becoming one of those patient white faces whose hunger and equality were one.

And slowly, gracefully the others, including Estelle and Celeste, moved towards her.

She was languid, her nakedness forgotten, those lids fluttering, a sigh escaping her moist lips. "No pain," she assented.

I couldn't bear it, the sight of her yielding towards him. I was angry at her for doing so. I wanted to take her, to kill her.

Armand moved in on her, his hand out now for the draw string of her skirt as she inclined towards him, her head back, the black cloth slipping over her hips, over the golden gleam of the hair between her legs- a child's down that delicate girl- the skirt dropping to her feet. Armand opened his arms, his back to the flickering footlights, his auburn hair seeming to tremble as the gold of her hair fell around his black coat. "No pain," Armand whispering to her, as she was giving herself over. He slowly turned her to the side so I could see her serene face, he lifted her, her back arching as her naked breasts touched his buttons, and her pale arms enfolded his neck.

My jealousy continued to bubble.

She stiffened, cried out as he sank his teeth, and her face was still as the dark theatre reverberated with shared passion. His white hand shone on her florid buttocks, her hair dusting it, stroking it.

It was then I knew that she still loved him.

Armand's victim was so well seduced, so well hypnotized that she loved him, even as he drank, her throat gleaming against his white cheek.

Jealousy now burned in me. I noticed Louis grip the brass bar of the box, I put my hand upon his, trying to sooth him, not knowing what was wrong. Of curse not that I've read his book, my inspiration for telling my own, I know.

He bowed his head, looking at me.

I reached up and placed my fingers gently on his eyelids. The air seemed fragrant with Louis's cologne.

He was sweating blood.

I hugged him tightly. I bit my tongue and kissed him, feeding him. I went and sat in my own seat, embarrassed. "A child, kissing an older man with tongue," I mused, "It's not right." Blood tears ran down my face as I cried for the simple fact that I'd never be able to kiss him passionately.


	26. Chapter 26

I turned back to the play. Around the victim the others drew into the white hand that held her tight quivered, and Armand released her, turning her displaying her, her head fallen back as he gave her over, Estelle rising behind her, cradling her and stroking her as she bent to drink.

They were all abut her now as she was passed from one to another and to another, before the enthralled crowd, her head thrown forward over the shoulder of a vampire man, the nape of her neck as desired by men as everything else of her body.

I peeked at Louis out of the corner of my eye.

He was keeping an eye on Armand.

I looked back at Armand to find him looking at Louis! I was jealous of both fo them. I tried to ignore it and watch the show.

One by one the vampires were withdrawing. The painted forest came back, sliding soundlessly into place. Until the mortal girl, frail and very white, lay naked in the mysterious wood, nestled in the silk of a black bier as if on the floor of the forest itself; and the music had begun yet again, eerie and alarming, growing louder as the lights grew dimmer. All the vampires were gone, except Santiago, who had gathered his scythe from the shadows and also his handheld mask. And he crouched near the sleeping girl as the lights slowly faded and the music alone had power and force in the enclosing dark. And then that died also.

For a moment, the entire crowd was utterly still. Then applause began here and there and suddenly united everyone around us.

I jumped when that happened.

The lights rose in the scones on the walls and heads turned to one another, conversation erupting all around. A woman rising in the middle of a row to pull her fox fur sharply from the chair.

Too embarrassed to encounter Louis after that kiss, I left.


	27. Chapter 27

The second I saw that women I decided I wanted her. I left Louis and Claudia to dash into the crowd next to the woman. As soon as the woman and I got outside, I put my distressed child look on and began to scream and cry.

Well, this woman was quite selfish, so she took no notice to me but only pulled her fox fur closer. She made the mistake of glaring at me, and I caught her gaze.

"Mommy," I squealed as I took her hand. I pulled her with me into the dark stairway and jumped onto her shoulder and took her down. I sank my teeth into her flesh and drained her. When I got back to Louis, Armand had found him and Claudia. I jumped in front of them and glared at him.

He looked at Claudia with no tribute what so ever to the human habit of disguising the stare.

Louis moved to protect Claudia behind me.

"We've been searching for you a very long time," Louis spoke.

Armand gave the impression that there was nothing that I could do.

Claudia said nothing.

Armand moved away from the wall and began to walk down the stairs, while at the same time he made a gesture that welcomed us and bade us follow, but all this was fluid and fast.

"Don't go," I cautioned Louis and Claudia.

Armand opened a door in the lower wall and admitted Claudia and Louis to the room below the theater, his feet only brushing the stone stairway.

Louis and Claudia didn't listen and cautiously descended the stairs.

I ran after them.

They were lending Armand too much trust. And now we entered what appeared to be a vast subterranean ballroom, covered, as it were out of a cellar more ancient than the building overhead. Above us, the door that Armand had opened fell shut, and the light died away before I could say anything. We stood in the darkness for a few seconds. "Open that door, please Armand," I ordered him in mind-speak. I heard the rustle of his garments in the dark.

"No need," he replied to me as he lit a match. His face appeared like a great flame over the match.

This scared me, forcing me to jump.

And then a figure moved into the light beside me, a young boy who brought him a candle.

My eyes saddened as I saw the mortal boy. If he was here, then that must mean that Lenton had died.

Armand lit the candle and whispered to the boy, "Go." The light expanded to the distant walls and Armand held the light up and moved along the wall, beckoning us to follow.

I saw the familiar frescoes and murals. It was the terrible 'Triumph of Death' by Breughel, painted on such a massive scale that all the multitude of ghastly figures fell over us in the gloom, those ruthless skeletons ferrying the helpless dead in a fluid moat or pulling a cart of human skulls, beheading an outstretched corpse or hanging humans from the gallows. A bell tolled over the endless hell of scorched and smoking land, towards which great armies of men came with the hideous, mindless march of soldiers to a massacre. I rather liked these paintings, but Louis turned away from them.

Armand touched Louis's hand and led him further along the wall to see 'The Fall of the Angels.'

"He doesn't want to see this, let him go," I begged Armand.

"You know as well as I do, I can't let them live," Armand sighed.

Louis shuddered.

"Please don't make him look on," I begged mind-spoke to Armand.

"They are beautiful," Armand reassured me. Two beautiful angels with trumpets to their lips. The candle rose. The very ceiling writhed with skeletons and moldering dead with demons and the instruments of pain as if this were the cathedral of death itself. It was my Cathedral. Where we stood finally in the center of the room, the candle seemed to pull the images to life everywhere around us. Delirium threatened, that shifting of the room began that sense of falling.

I reached for Louis just to find him reaching out for Claudia's hand. I stood alone and felt as if I were falling from grace. I felt so alone, like I wasn't even in the room. Blood tears dripped from my eyes.

Claudia stood musing, her face passive, her eyes distant when Louis looked at her, and amused when I looked at her, as if she'd have Louis let her alone and have me mind-speak to her behind Louis's back as we often did. And then her feet shot off from Louis with rapid tapping on the stone floor that echoed all along the walls, like fingers poking at my temples, on my forehead.

Louis held his temples, staring dumbly at the floor in search of something.

I looked around, seeing nothing.

He looked up at Armand.

Armand's lips were very still, but as Louis stared at him, he seemed to smile without making even the slightest movement.

Louis watched him all the harder. The more he watched, the more Armand seemed to smile and be animate with a soundless whispering, musing, singing.

I could hear it like wallpaper being torn in the dark, as fire burns in itself or paint dries on the face of a freshly made doll. I recognized what he was singing: No Greater Crime. Suddenly I saw him pressed against Louis, his arms around his chest, his lashes close. It was jealousy. I was jealous of Louis and Armand, both of them. The moment ended, "Let him go Armand," I found myself begging him.

Louis had his hand outstretched, touching Armand's face, but Armand was a distance away from Louis, as if Armand had never moved near Louis, making me attempt to brush Louis's hand away.

"Louis, what are you doing," I sighed, jealous of Armand.

Louis drew back, flushed. Far away in the Paris night a bell chimed. Louis looked at the mortal boy, watching him.

"Armand, who is this new boy," I questioned him through mind-speak.

Armand's facile hand beckoned him, but he went to Louis, his eyes fearless and exciting, and he drew up to Louis in the candle light and put his arms around Louis's shoulder. "He is the boy replacing Lenton," Armand replied.

I saw the bluish bruises on the boy's tender neck.

He was offering it to Louis. He was pressing the length of his body against Louis now.

Louis gasped.

The boy bent close, his lips on Louis's shoulder, and Louis sank his teeth into the boy's skin.

Louis's body rigid and he lifted the boy in passion off the floor. He rocked with him.

In jealousy I snatched the boy from Louis. Yes I love Louis so much that I'd even desire that type of escape of pleasure. I would die for him.

The boy was weak and gasping and Louis saw him at a distance from him, his arms empty, the boy's blood flooding a bit from his mouth.

I gave him to Armand so that I wouldn't kill him myself.

He lay against Armand, his arms around Armand's waist, and the boy and Armand both gazed at Louis. The boy's eyes misted over, weak from the loss of life.

Louis moved mutely forward. He turned.

The host of vampires moved in the shadows, their candles whipped and fleeting on the cold air, and above them loomed a great broadcast of ink-drawn figures, the sleeping corpse of a woman ravaged by a vulture with a human face; a naked man bound hand and foot too, beside him, hanging the torso of another, his severed arms tied still to another branch, and on a spike this dead man's staring head.

Estelle touched Louis suddenly, pushing him roughly, so that he almost lost his balance, but I made sure he didn't.

I caught him as he was falling, lifting him so I could rightly place him on his feet again.

But when he straightened, he saw Santiago.

"Don't any of you touch him," I hissed loudly at them all.

Yet Santiago reached out for Louis with his white hands.

"Armand do something," I begged him in mind-speak.

Armand moved forward suddenly and stood between Louis and Santiago. Armand struck Santiago. I saw him move and then again I did not see him move, both stood still like statues, eyes fixed on one another. Time passed like the tide of water at the beach.

We stood there merely a few seconds, Santiago, Armand and Louis in those shadows, and how utterly still they seemed to me only the shimmering flames seeming to have life behind them.

I stole Louis away and placed him gently in a large oak chair into which he all but collapsed.

Claudia was near, speaking with the human boy.

Louis's forehead had begun to sweat blood.

I climbed into his lap and gently licked it dry.

"Come with me," Armand said.

Louis searched his face for something, not seeming to find it.

"What is it Louis," I asked confused, worried that he had gone mad. And then we were walking, the four of us, down a long stone stairway deeper beneath the city, Claudia ahead of us, her shadow long against the wall. The air grew cool and refreshing with the fragrance of water, and Louis took slight notice to the droplets bleeding through the stones like beads of gold in the light of Armand's candle.

He took us to the same pace he had taken me when we first had met not too many nights ago. Armand led Louis into the same leather chair that I had sat in.

Louis sat back, his eyes only half open.

I couldn't resist, I had to climb into his lap and kiss him, he was too seducing.

He looked at me with wide surprised, confused eyes.

I sat on the bed in the room next to the boy.

Louis looked at him and Claudia, and I took this time to examine the boy myself. He had black hair, parted in the middle and curling about his ears, so that he looked now in his dreamy, fevered state like one of those little androgynous creatures of a Botticelli painting; and beside him, nestled against him, her tiny white hand stark against his ruby flesh, lay Claudia, her face buried in his neck.

Armand looked on, his hands clasped in front of him, and when Claudia rose now, the boy shuddered. Armand tried to pick her up, but she clung to the boy.

She didn't want to leave him; she was in love with him, whispering sweet nothings into his ear.

Burying his face in the pillows, the boy slept.


	28. Chapter 28

Louis kept looking at Claudia. He turned and looked at things on Armand's desk, the polished white skull, the candle holder, the open parchment book, whose hand-painted script gleamed in the light; and above it a shimmering painting of a medieval devil, horned and hoofed, his bestial figure looming over a coven of worshipping witches.

Claudia now stroked the boy's hair and looked at Armand with wide wondering eyes.

Louis was gazing at the devil in the painting.

"You won't awaken the boy if you speak," Armand said, "You come from so far, you've traveled so long."

Louis looked at Armand calmly as he sat in the opposite chair.

Armand looked from Louis, to Claudia, to me, his smooth face and pacific eyes very like they'd been all along, as though there had never been any change in him at all. "My name is Armand," he said, "I sent Santiago to give you the invitation. I know your names. I welcome you to my house."

"We feared we were alone," Louis said, not sounding like himself at all.

"But how did you come into existence," Armand asked.

Claudia's hands stroked the boy's hair. Her eyes gazing lovingly at the boy's.

I saw this, and knew that Armand must have seen it, and yet gave no sign. I knew she didn't want to be part of this conversation.

Claudia only wanted to be with her mortal love.

"You don't want to answer," Armand said, his voice low and even more measured than Claudia's voice, far less human than Louis's.

"Are you the leader of this group," Louis asked him.

"Not in the way you mean leader," he answered, "But if there were a leader here, I would be that one."

"I haven't come….. You'll forgive me. To talk of how I came into being. Because that's no mystery to me, it presents no question. So if you have no power to which I might be required to render respect, I don't wish to talk of those things," Louis managed to say.

"Please don't ask again of our origin," I politely requested Armand.

"If I told you I did have much power, would you respect it," Armand asked Louis.

I notice that Louis's mind had wandered, and I walked over to Louis, sat in his lap and elbowed him in the ribs, causing him to spit out the words, "I'm not certain."

He pushed me off of his lap angrily, looking at the medieval Satan again. "I would have to know from what," he mumbled, "from whom it comes. Whether it came from other vampires….. Or elsewhere?"

"Elsewhere," Armand asked, "What is elsewhere?"

I took a sear next to the fireplace. A blood tear ran down my face. "He's angry with me," I foretold sadly. Suddenly I was drawn out of my own misery to hear Louis shout loudly, angrily, "THAT!" I looked up at him to see him pointing at the medieval picture.

"That is a picture," Armand mused.

"Nothing more," Louis demanded.

"Nothing more," Armand sighed calmly.

"Then Satan… some satanic power doesn't give you your power here, either as leader or as a vampire," Louis gasped, confused.

"No," Armand said calmly, so calmly that it calmed me.

I could think with sense now, and I realized it was Satan Louis was angry with, not me.


	29. Chapter 29

Louis had been thinking so intensely of Satan that he had mistaken me for Satan. He had thought Satan had elbowed him! "And the other vampires," Louis questioned.

"No," Armand answered.

"Then we are not," Louis began as he sat forward, "The children of Satan?"

I began to laugh. "Armand please, explain, reason with him. Teach him," I requested Armand though mind-speak.

"Gladly," Armand replied to me. "How could we be the children of Satan," he asked, "Do you believe that Satan made this world around you?"

"No," Louis preached, "I believe that God made it, if anyone made it. But He also must have made Satan, and I want to know if we are his children!"

"Louis, calm down," I stood up and leapt onto the arm of his chair so that I sat on it, "Just listen to what Armand has to say." "Keep going," I pressured Armand through mind-speak.

"Exactly, and consequently if you believe god made Satan. You must realize that all Satan's power comes from God and that Satan is simply God's child, and that we are God's children also. There are no children of Satan, really," Armand explained.

As Armand explained I slowly pushed Louis back into the chair.

He was looking at a small wood cut of the Devil and was getting lost in his thoughts again.

"Help me bring him back, as him something please," I asked Armand.

Armand nodded. "But why dose this concern you? Surely what I say doesn't surprise you," Armand asked Louis, trying to get his attention, "Why do you let it affect you?"

Louis shot back into the room and the conversation. "Let me explain," he blurt out as if he truly felt as if he needed to explain himself, "I know that you're a master vampire. I respect you. But I'm incapable of your detachment. I know what it is, and I do not possess it and I doubt that I ever will. I accept this."

"Oh Louis don't say that," I begged him; "You'll become a master in time."

Louis shook his head.

'"I understand," Armand gave Louis comfort, "I saw you in the theater, your suffering, your sympathy with that girl. I saw your sympathy for Denis when I offered him to you. You die when you kill, as if you feel that you deserve to die, and you stint on nothing. But why, with this passion and this sense of justice, do you wish to call yourself of child of Satan!"

Jealousy over the women that Armand had taken returned to me.

"I'm evil," Louis cried, "Evil as any vampire who ever lived! I've killed over and over and will do it again. I took that boy, Denis, when you gave him to me, though I was incapable of knowing whether he would survive or not."

"Denis," Claudia cooed, "My Denis."

'You aren't evil Louis," I disagreed.

"But I am," Louis sobbed.

"Why dose that make you as evil as any vampire," Armand asked, "Aren't there graduations of evil? Is evil a great perilous gulf into which one falls with the first sin, plummeting to the depth?"

"Yes I think it is," Louis agreed, "It's not logical as you would make it sound. But it's that dark, that empty. And it is without consolation."

"But you're not being fair," Armand said with the first glimmer of expression in his voice of that night, "Surely you attribute great degrees and variations to goodness. There is the goodness of the child which innocence, and then there is the goodness of the monk who has given up everything to others and lives a life of self deprivation and service. The goodness of saints, the goodness of good housewives. Are all these the same?"

"No," Louis answered. Louis had learnt what Armand had been trying to teach him. He sat there, lost in thought for twenty minutes or so, and then looked Armand in the eyes.

The entire time Armand just watching Louis.

Louis put his hands to his head.

"Are you all right Louis," I asked him as I reached for him.

"And how is this evil achieved," Armand asked indifferently, "How dose one fall from grace and become in one instant as evil as the mob tribunal of the Revolution or the most cruel of the Roman emperors? Dose one merely have to miss Mass on Sunday, or bite down on the communion Host? Or steal a loaf of bread… or sleep with a neighbor's wife?"

"Stop it, you're confusing him," I screamed at Armand, "You're overwhelming him! Stop!!"

"No," Louis shook his head, "No. I'm fine Dramana." He shook it off.

I sat in Louis's lap and held his hand.

Armand took his answer. "But if evil is without graduation and it dose exist, this state of evil, then only one sin is needed. Isn't that what you are saying? That God exists and…"

"Don't twist my words," I mind-spoke to Armand, causing him to stop speaking.

"I don't know if God exists," Louis admitted, gripping my hand all the tighter, looking for comfort and support, "And for all I do know… He doesn't exist."

"Then no sin matters," Armand tried to comfort Louis himself, noticing how uncomfortable he appeared, "No sin achieves evil."

"That's not true," Louis shouted, his male ego getting the better of him, he wanted to be the right one, the one to end it, "Because if God doesn't exist we are the creatures of highest consciousness in the universe. WE alone understand the passage of time and the value of every minute of human life. And what constitutes evil, real evil, is the taking of a single human life. Whether a man would have died tomorrow or the day after or eventually…"

"Many things take many lives," I pointed out, "It's all ironically, part of life."

"It doesn't matter," he realized, "Because if God dose not exist, this life…"

"What life," I scoffed, "All we do is exist. Mere existence…"

"Every second of it," Louis mused.

"We don't have anything else," I saddened.

"Is all we have," Louis agreed.

Armand sat back. His large eyes narrowing on me, then fixing on the depths of the fire. He was wounded by what I had said. This was the first time he looked away from Louis, yes Louis still looked on at Armand. It seemed Armand possessed an aura and even though his face was very young, which I knew meant very little, he appeared infinitely old, wise. His beauty seduced me. The youthful lines of his face how his eyes expressed innocence and this age and experience at the same time. He rose now and looked at Claudia, his hands loosely clasped behind his back.

Her silence all this time had been understandable to me. These were not her questions, and she was fascinated, in a loving way, with Denis and was waiting for him to awaken and no doubt love him.

Denis's eyes slowly opened.

I understood something else now as Denis and Claudia looked at each other.

Armand had moved to his feet with a body totally at his command, devoid of the habit of human gesture, gesture rooted in necessity ritual, fluctuation of mind; and his stillness now was unearthly.

And she, as I'd never seen before, possessed the same stillness. And Claudia and Denis were gazing at each other with a mutual understanding of the love they felt for each other from which I was simply excluded.

I was as a mortal was to Louis. "I'm sorry, Armand," I mind-whispered to him finally. And I knew, when Armand turned towards Louis again that he'd come to understand that I didn't mean to harm him with my words and also that Claudia did not believe or share Louis's concept of evil.

"Forgiven," he dubbed me in mind-speak. His speech commenced with that being my only warning, "This is the only real evil left," he said to the flames.

"Yes," Louis agreed.

"It's true," Armand said shocking Louis and deepening his sadness, his despair.

"Then God dose not exist," Louis's emotions eeped through his words.

"How do you know," I questioned Armand.

"You have no knowledge of this existence," Louis questioned.

"None," Armand sighed.

"No knowledge," Louis said again, obviously in pain.

"None,' Armand repeated, "And no vampire here has discourse with God or with the devil."

Louis gasped.

"No vampire that I've ever known," Armand said, musing, the fire dancing in his eyes, "And as far as I know today, after four hundred years, I am the oldest living vampire in the world."

Louis stared at him astonished, then after a while, sat back listlessly watching the licking flames." Four hundred years," He repeated. He stared at the fire. There was a log falling very slowly in the fire, drifting downwards in a process that would take it the night, and it was pitted with tiny holes where some substance that had larded it through and through had burned away fast, and in each of those tiny holes there danced a flame amid the larger flames; and all of those tiny flames with their black mouths seemed to me people that made a group and they whispered without speaking. The people had no need of whispering, in one sigh in the fire, which was continuous; it made its soundless secrets.

I got out of Louis's lap and began to walk towards the fire.


	30. Chapter 30

All at once Armand moved in a loud rustling of garments, catching my attention, releasing me from my daze, a descent of crackling shadow and light that left him kneeling at Louis's feet, his hands outstretched holding Louis's head, his eyes burning. " This evil, this concept it comes from disappointments, from bitterness! Don't you see? Children of Satan! Children of God! Is this the only question you bring to me; is this the only power that obsesses you, so that you must make us gods and evils, yourself when the only power that exists is inside ourselves? How could you believe in these old fantastical lies, these myths, these emblems of the supernatural?" He snatched the devil from above Claudia's still countenance so swiftly that I couldn't see the gesture, only the demon leering before Louis and then crackling in the flames were seen.

Louis was on his feet now, backing away from Armand.

"Louis, what's wrong," I asked.

He didn't answer; he didn't even look at me. It was as if he never even heard me. "Are you mad," Louis asked Armand angrily, "We stand here, the two of us, immortal, ageless, rising nightly to feed that immortality on human blood: and there on your bed against the knowledge of the ages sits a flawless child as demonic as ourselves; and you ask me how I could believe I would find a meaning in the supernatural! I tell you after seeing what I have become. I could damn well believe anything! Couldn't you? And believing that being thus confounded, I can now accept the most fantastical truth of all: that there is no meaning to any of this!" He backed towards the odor, away from Armand's astonished face, his hand hovering before his lips, the fingertips curling to dig into his palm.

"Don't! Come back," Armand whispered

"No. Not now," Louis insisted, "Let me go just a while."

I ran to him and thrust myself onto him.

"Let me go," he told me.

"Cant I go with you," I whispered as tears ran down my face, "I used to be le to go with you. Do you think of me mad? Has your opinion of everything changed so much?"

"Nothing's changed," he reassured me as he crouched down to my level, "It's all the same. Let that sink into me."


	31. Chapter 31

I threw my arms around his neck in an embrace.

"Just let me go," he whispered in my ear before I felt him gently press his lips upon it. Louis stood up with me in his arms, holding me steadily with one cold strong arm, and grabbed the door with the other.

A bit of hope that he'd take me with him, let me stay with him, help him, comfort him, arose in me, but just the same fell when he looked back and put me down.

He looked back at Claudia.

Claudia's face was turned towards Denis through he sat as before, her hands clasped around Denis's left hand tenderly. She made a gesture then, subtle as her smile which was tinged with the faintest notion that Louis was to go on.

He left us.

I turned back to the odd couple, human, mortal and vampire, demon-child; Denis and Claudia.

Armand pulled my attention to him as he put a hand on my left shoulder, mind-speaking to me, "Keep an eye on Denis for me."

I nodded. Soundlessly I stepped into the shadows.

Armand left as well.

The two love birds were supposedly left alone: a shy blue jay and a black raven. The two sat in silence for a few minutes before Claudia gave off a small smile.

Denis replied with a shy smile of his own.

"You may ask my name," Claudia reassured him, having already read his thoughts to see that he wished to speak, "You may speak to me."

"Ok," Denis's smile grew as he blushed a bright red, "What is your name, mademoiselle," he politely asked.

"Claudia," she replied with a smile.


	32. Chapter 32

"Claudia," he whispered in awe, "Beautiful. It suites you well Madame. A santé."

"Call me by my name, just once," Claudia requested.

"Claudia," he named her.

"Not just by itself, please," she began to be her picky self.

"What would you like me to say," he asked.

"Anything," Claudia sighed.

It took him long enough to get out the words. "I love you, Claudia."

Claudia smiled at him as she scooted over next to him and rested her head on his shoulder. "I love you too," she whispered in his ear before kissing it sensually.

He blushed just as she had before. They sat there in silence for a while before Claudia got to her feet.

She rose to her feet. "I want to share something with you," she told him.

Denis got to his feet as well.

Claudia took Denis in her arms and ran at top speed, and I ran after them. She ran to a park and the two sat on a bench.

"That was fun," Denis breathed, smiling. He was beginning to shed his shyness.

Claudia smiled back, "Good." She replied. She took his hand and they walked around for a few hours holding hands. When Claudia, Denis and I returned, we found Louis, Santiago and Armand together.

Armand in the middle of them both.

My guess was that they'd been fighting again.

Then Armand stood alone at the head of the steps and Louis went upward towards him.

"Armand, Claudia doesn't want to leave Denis tonight, may we stay, please," I mind-spoke to him.

"You can not safely leave the theatre tonight;" Armand lied to keep us there, "Santiago is suspicious of you. And my having brought you here, he feels that it is his right to know you better. Our security depends on it." He looked at me during that last sentence, mind-speaking to me, "He is in love with you. He wants you to be his child to complete his family of a husband and a wife, and thinks if he can't have you, no one should. He sees Louis as a threat, you aren't safe."

I nodded to him solemnly.

He guided us slowly into the ballroom.


	33. Chapter 33

"Warn Louis, please Armand," I begged him through mind-speak, "I'd rather die alone than die in his arms. I want him to live." A blood tear ran down my face.

Armand whispered something in Louis's ear, which now that I have read Louis's book, I know it to be a warning.

I now regret never having thanked Armand for doing that for me. Ah, oh well.

After speaking to Louis, Armand moved away from Louis and Claudia and towards me. He beckoned to them to follow him into the gloom where the others were gathered, clustered like remote marble statues, their faces and hands like Louis's and Claudia's.

Louis seemed to be disturbed, while Claudia seemed to awaken, for before entering the room, she had received her first kiss.

Denis had kissed her. For all this time Claudia and Denis had been speaking without saying a word, as lovers often do.

I took Louis's hand and led him to the carved oak chairs.

He settled into it.

I leaned towards Louis and told him not to say anything of our origin, and to do as Armand said.

He opened his mouth to speak to me, but I gently put my hand on top of it, silencing him.

"Not here," I whispered to him.

Louis had noticed Santiago watching us; his eyes moving form him to me, to Armand. As he turned to look at Armand, I too looked.

Estelle and Celeste were gathered around Armand, and they put their arms around his waist. Their bewitching blind eyes fixed upon Louis.

I was afraid when I saw them so close to Armand, yet again and jealous still when he turned and kissed them each. "Let them meet Louis," I inquired of Armand, and as he brought them near to Louis now, I was unsure.

Celeste put her cold hand on Louis's arm, explained to Louis, "See those paintings?" She spoke with contempt of men as the originators of the pictures, and Estelle emphasized to Louis, the naïve colonial, that vampires had not made such horrors themselves but merely collected them, confirming over and over that men were capable of far greater evil then vampires.

"There is evil in making things," Louis asked softly in a surprised voice.

Celeste threw back her black curls and laughed, "What can be made, can be evil," she answered quickly, but her tone inflected a certain contained hostility, "Of course, speaking of evil, we strike to rival men in kills of all kinds, do we not!"

When I moved from the conversation, bored of it really, Celeste sat down in Louis's lap.

Claudia meanwhile had found a pair of seats relatively close to one another, and merely looked at Denis, watching him laugh at every joke she made. She liked his laugh.

Santiago drew near me, asking where I was staying and asking if he may escort me home now.

I could see through his plan, though, he wanted to get rid of me. "I'm staying in a hotel," is all I told him.

Upset that he did not get the answer he wanted, he decided to take it out on Louis to try and provoke me into telling him. "Come here," he yelled at Louis as he yanked him to his feet, brushing Celste aside. He threw a punch at Louis in rage.

I saw this coming and intercepted it, receiving the blow, breaking my nose, in order to protect Louis.

And meanwhile, the vampires around us talked on, Estelle explaining that black was the color for a vampire's clothes, that it was the perfect color.

"Louis, go speak with Estelle, I'm fine," I told him softly.


	34. Chapter 34

Santiago's eyes had gone wide and he silently sleeked away into the shadows and disappeared.

Louis reached up to touch my face.

My bones were already painfully healing.

"Dramana," he softly whispered.

"I'm fine," I reminded him as his palm clasped around my cheek I reached up and placed my hand on top of his gently.

Estelle walked over to Claudia and commented on her lovely pastel beautiful dress, "Your dress isn't exactly tasteful for a vampire," she critiqued her, "It's more in the taste of a human. It doesn't blend at all with the night and doesn't have a funeral gleam at all!" And now, bending her cheek next to Claudia's cheek, she laughed to soften her criticism; and Celeste laughed, in fact, we all laughed, the laughter being so contagious, and the whole room seemed alive with unearthly tinkling laughter, preternatural voices echoing against the painted walls, rippling the feeble candle flames. "Ah, but to cover up such curls," Celeste said, now playing with Claudia's golden hair.

Louis looked around at everyone. He wandered away from us to one of the narrow mirrors and watched us all over his shoulder.

Claudia gleamed like a jewel in their midst; as did Denis, who slept, his head in Claudia's lap.

"The vampires of eastern Europe," Claudia was recalling, "Monstrous creatures, what have they to do with us?"

Louis seemed bored, so I went to him.

I reached out and gently cradled Louis's hand in both of my own.

He looked down at me.

"Do you find me dull," I inquired.

He sighed and shook his head. Finally he answered, "No. No I don't."


	35. Chapter 35

The room fell silent. Armand, meanwhile, had engaged in a conversation with Claudia. "Their blood is different, vile. They increase as we do but without kill or care. In the old days," Armand spoke. Abruptly he stopped Louis and I could see his face in the mirror. It was strangely rigid.

"Oh, but tell us about the old days," Said Celeste, her voice shrill, at human pitch. There was something vicious in her tone.

"Yes, tell us of the covens, and the herbs that would render us invisible, "Estelle persisted, "And the burnings at the stake!"

Armand fixed his eyes on Claudia, and I felt the sting f jealousy in me again. "Beware those monsters," he said, and calculatedly his eyes passed over us all, and when his eyes fell on me, I saw worry in his eyes. "Those revenants. They will attack you as if you were human," he informed her.

"But we aren't human," I objected.

Celeste shuddered, uttering, "But they're monsters, so what dose it matter?"

But Louis was watching Claudia; it seemed her eyes were misted again, almost like before.

She looked away from Armand suddenly to look at the stirring Denis. She stroked his hair, soothing him back into sleep.

The voices of the others rose again, affected party voices, as they conferred with one another on the night's kills, describing this or that encounter without a smattering of emotion, challenges to cruelty erupted from time to time like flashes of white lightning; a tall, thin vampire being accosted in one corner for a needless romanticizing of mortal life, a lack of spirit, a refusal to do the most entertaining thing at the moment it was available to him.

His name was Slim, I had met him the night I met Estelle and Celeste. He was tall, at least six feet tall, probably six five by the looks of things, anyways, he had natural thin black hair, pale skin and dark brown, almost black silent eyes with thin, stubby eyelashes and thin eyebrows. His bones practically showed everywhere. He was a loner, didn't talk much to anyone. His past is mostly unknown except for the fact that he didn't want to become what he is now. He was simple, sluggish, slow at words, and would fall for long periods into a strange silence as if, near choked with blood, he would as soon have gone to his coffin as remain there. "Will we always be friends," he awkwardly inquired after we had been talking for a while.

"Forever?" I looked at him shocked. I knew I was his first and only friend, but I never expected him to ask me that. I thought about it and shrugged, saying, "Sure."


	36. Chapter 36

"And when we die, when we die, when we are reborn as humans again, we'll find each other, right," Slim continued.

I nodded. "Of course."

"When we're human again, when we are mortal," he romantically sighed, "What would your maker think of our plan?" He sighed softly, almost in a whisper.

How would Lestat have found it? No one had dictated to Lestat- he was master of his small circle; but how they would have praised his inventiveness, his cat like toying with this victims.

"I don't think he'd like it," I admitted, "I don't think he ever wants me to leave him. He doesn't want me to die…" I fondly remembered Lestat talking to Louis, "You wasted the opportunity to kill this child. You wasted the opportunity to frighten this poor women or drive that man to madness, which only a little prestidigitation would have accomplished."

Lestat had lectured Louis.

I smiled at the memory. The next thing I knew my head was spinning. A common mortal headache. I noticed Louis begin to leave. "Armand, help me keep Louis here, please," I mind-spoke to him.

He seemed remote from the others now, though he nodded often enough, and uttered a few words here and there so that he seemed a part from them, his hand only occasionally rising from the lion's paw of his chair.

Then my heart sank when I saw that no one held Armand's gaze as Louis did, and no one held it nearly as long either.

Yet he remained aloof from him, his eyes alone returning to him.

Louis stood listlessly, listening to us talking.

"But isn't there no crime amongst you, no cardinal crime," Claudia asked. Her violet eyes seemed fixed upon Denis's reflection in the mirror behind Louis.

Louis stood with his back to her.

"Crime! Boredom," Cried out Estelle, and she pointed a white finger at Armand.

He laughed softly with her form his distant position at the end of the room.

"Boredom is death," she cried out and barred her vampire fangs, so that Armand put a languid hand to his forehead in a stage gesture of fear and falling.

I laughed at Armand's actions.

"Crime," Celeste said, "Yes, there is a crime. A crime for which we would hang another vampire down until we destroyed him. Can you guess what it is?" She glanced from Claudia to Louis and back again to her lovely face.

Claudia was stroking Denis's eyelashes ever so gently as he slept.

"You should know, who are so secretive about the vampire that made you," Celeste assumed.

"And why is that," Claudia asked her eyes widening ever so slightly.

For Denis had awakened.

Claudia helped him sit up and he leaned his head upon Claudia's shoulder still a bit drowsy. Claudia rested her hands in her lap, and Denis took them in his own. A hush fell over the room, gradually, then completely, all those white faces turned to face Celeste as she stood there, one foot forward, her hands clasped behind her back, towering over Claudia and Denis.

Denis's eyes gleamed before he planted a kiss onto Claudia's cheek.

And then Celeste broke away and crept up behind Louis, putting her hand on his shoulder. "Can you guess what that crime is? Didn't your vampire master tell you," she whispered seducing into Louis's left ear rather coyly.

Rage grew in me as I noticed that Celeste had feelings for Louis, the Louis I loved.

And drawing Louis slowly around with those invading familiar hands, she tapped his heart lightly in the time with it's quickening pace. "It is the crime that means death to any vampire anywhere who commits it. It is to kill your own kind," she announced.

"Aaaaaaahhhh," Claudia cried out because Denis had scared her.

While Celeste had been toying with Louis, Denis had been telling Claudia a scary story.

Claudia lapsed into peals of laugher now since Denis had been tickling her.

Denis lead her across the room and she was walking across the floor now with swirling lavender silk and crisp resounding steps.

Taking my hands, she said, "I was so afraid it was to be in love with a human like I am!"

Meanwhile Denis had run to Armand to ask him if he could go with Claudia for the night, if not forever.

Armand smiled and nodded and so Denis ran back o Claudia joyously crying, 'He said yes, he said yes!"


	37. Chapter 37

Denis hugged Claudia from behind and nuzzled his cheek next to hers in a tight embrace.

"Come, Denis, let's go," she beckoned as she pulled me away.

Denis changed to be holding Claudia's other hand as I took Louis's and pulled him away quickly.

Claudia and Denis went to go dancing, the night was still young yet, and Louis and I went running off back to the hotel.

Louis didn't catch his breath until he'd reached the street. The rain was still falling, and all of the street seemed desolate in the rain, but beautiful. A few scattered bits of paper blowing in the wind, a gleaming carriage passing slowly with the thick, rhythmic clop of the horse. The carriage stopped in front of Louis and me and out stepped Claudia and Denis.

It turns out that they had gone out and somehow, had decided against going dancing but instead to take a romantic carriage ride back to the hotel. The sky was pale violet.

Denis knew it was time for him to go home. He shed a single sad tear, kissed Claudia on the cheek, and got back into the carriage. He sadly waved as the carriage began to leave, but Louis was already speeding fast, with Claudia besides him leading the way, and ten finally frustrated with the length of Louis's stride, riding in his arms.

"Claudia just doesn't like goodbyes," I told Denis through mind-speak upon seeing his crushed look, "She still loves you." With that, I went to catch up with Claudia and Louis, who were by now near the hotel Saint-Gabriel.

"I don't like them," Claudia said with fury. Even its immense, brightly lit lobby was still in the pre-dawn hour.

Louis sprinted past the sleepy clerks, the long faces at the desk.

I went up to the desk and informed the young clerk that we weren't to be disturbed.

He nodded and his face smacked the table; he was asleep.


	38. Chapter 38

I went up to our room and Claudia was undressing, beginning with her cape.

She threw off her cape hastily and walked into the center of the room as if afraid of something. A valley of rain hit the French windows.

As Louis lit the laps, as Lestat or Claudia would usually do, I checked all of the windows to be sure they were shut tightly against the rain. "Why don't you rest Louis," I suggested to him, "You look exhausted. Here, come sit." I offered him the puce velvet chair.

He slipped down into it.

I sat near the window and placed my hand upon the window as if to reach for the falling rain. It seemed, for the moment, as if the room blazed around me; as my eyes fixed on the rain the Vampire spell was broken. I felt as if I were a little human mortal girl again, going out to dance in the rain as I did years ago. I stepped out onto the balcony and stood in the rain for a few seconds, my face raised to look at the sky, and my arms outstretched wide. They couldn't touch us here, and yet I knew this to be a lie, a foolish lie. Then I realized that Claudia and Louis were fighting again. I ran back in to hear Louis shouting, "But how can they know what we did to him? Besides, we are in danger! Do you think for a moment I don't acknowledge my own guilt! And if you were the only one…" He reached out for her now as she crawled near him in fear, but her fierce eyes settled on him and he let his hand drop back limp.

"Do you think I would leave you in danger," he demanded.

"He wouldn't, Claudia, believe me," I mind-spoke to her.

She smiled.

For a moment I didn't believe my eyes.

"No, you would not, Louis. You would not. Danger holds you to me…" Claudia realized.

"Love holds me to you," Louis said softly.

Jealousy slapped me.

"Love," She mused, "What do you mean by love?"

I could see the pain all over his face. "Apologize to him, you've hurt him," I shouted at Claudia, upset.

She went close to him and put her hands on his cheeks. She was cold, unsatisfied, as Louis was cold and unsatisfied, teased by that mortal boy but unsatisfied.

"That you take my love for granted, always," He said to her, "That we are wed…" he pointed out. He yanked her hand to him to reveal a shining huge diamond ring upon Claudia's wedding finger.

I gasped. "Louis, are you really married to her," I asked him.

He nodded. "The night after you ran off after the opera," He explained.

"When Santiago met me," I realized in thought.

"I realized what a woman Claudia has become," he looked at her, "She confessed her dream- her wish to be married in a fine white gown, the finest from France. So I proposed, arranged everything, and we were married. We rented out the best church, bought the most beautiful daisy bouquet, as well as a beautiful white silk dress, I caught some prey for our wedding feast, two young youths, teenage girls, got two fine glass wine glasses, and we were married, there and then. All in a total of a single hour."

Tears ran down my face, I could see it perfectly; the dress, the flowers… everything.

"Of course it wasn't quite as passionate as a human wedding, but it was good enough," Louis sighed.

I remembered the night Claudia had taught him about mortal passion.

"You wouldn't leave me for Armand if he beckoned to you," Claudia sniffled.

"Never," Louis said to her.

"You would leave me, and he wants you as you want him. He's been waiting for you..." Claudia pointed out.

"Never," Louis repeated. He rose now and made his way to a chest. The doors were locked, but they would not keep those vampires out. Only we could keep them out by rising as early as the light would let us.

I went to the chest and opened it to visit the spiders. I reached into a web and allowed a spider to crawl onto me. I stroked it with a finger gently.

Louis turned to Claudia and told her to come.

Claudia was at his side.

Louis loved her. As Louis drew her close to him, and Claudia said, "Do you know what it was that Denis told me over and over without ever speaking a word; do you know what was the kernel of the trance he put me in so my eyes could only look at him so that he pulled me as if my heart were on a string?"

"So you felt it," Louis whispered, "So you know…"

"He rendered me powerless," she sighed as if she had been melted.

I saw the image of her when she had been with Armand for the first time she had met Denis and he had awakened.

"But what are you saying? That he spoke to you, that he…" Louis objected.

"Without words," she repeated in a dreamy wish.

I could see the gas light going dim, the candle flames too solid in their stillness. I refilled the gas lights and they glowed. The rain beat on the panes. I opened a window and stuck my thin hand through the slit and put my palm up, touching the rain. I left the window and blew out the candles; the lights were enough.

"Do you know what he said," she demanded softly. "That I should die," she whispered, "That I should let you go!"

Louis shook his head.

She spoke the truth, and she believed it. There was love in her eyes, dark and red. Her lips trembled, "Life out of my heart, which he now owns, life out of me whom he would make his slave. He loves me. He loves me! He would have me, and he would not have you stand in the way."

"You don't understand him," Louis fought, kissing her. He kissed her cheeks and her lips and jealousy stung me.

"Stop it stop it," I thought. On accident I mind spoke to Louis, "STOP IT!"

He stopped kissing Claudia, his last kiss on her lips and turned to me, but was called back by Claudia.

"No, I understand him, only too well," she whispered to him, "It is you who doesn't understand him. Love's blinded me, your fascination with his knowledge I don't notice, his mortal power. If you knew how he drinks death you'd hate him more than you ever hated Lestat. Louis, you must never return to him. I tell you, I'm in danger!"

"You'll be safe in your coffin, the sun is coming," I pointed out as I walked towards my coffin.

Louis began to rise sadly, but Claudia stopped him.

"Please, forgive me. I love you, but I love Denis more. I'm sorry," she dropped the ring into his hand as he reached for her.

"Dramana, can I use your coffin from now on," she requested of me.

I nodded as I climbed into Louis's coffin with him.


	39. Chapter 39

"Go see Armand tomorrow," I whispered to him as he got into his death sleep.

Early the next night Louis and I left Claudia.

Claudia let Louis go reluctantly, for she wanted his blessing and he refused to give it, he still loved her, and Louis was troubled, deeply, by the expression in her eyes. Weakness was unknown to her, and yet Louis saw fear and something begging even then as she let him go.

Louis hurried away. He waited outside the theatre until the last of the patrons had gone and the doormen were tending to the locks.

While we waited I threw my arms around Louis and hugged him tightly. I sighed softly." Claudia has found her mortal love, but she still loves you," I reminded him.

He sighed as he let his hand touch mind. "I know," he said softly.

"Besides, I still- love you," I pointed out.

He gave me a small smile as he looked down at me and put his hand on the top of my head and stroked the part in my hair. "I know," he repeated.

I took the only remaining doormen victim; he thought I was an actress, like all of the other humans who saw me around the theatre. To them I was simply a person who didn't take off my paint. It didn't matter. What mattered was that they let Louis and me in. We walked through the ballroom to Armand's door.

Armand saw Lois immediately. He heard my mind-speak, "We're back." He welcomed Louis at once and asked him to sit down. He was busy with Denis, who was dinning at the desk on a silver plate of meat and fish.

A decanter of white wine stood next to him. The bottle was almost empty. Denis was flushed with intoxication. "To Claudia," he toasted the air, his eyes flashing on Louis as he smiled; but the toast was to Claudia.

"Is she your slave," Armand inquired.

"NO," Louis exclaimed as Armand watched as the boy drank deeply.

And now the boy took a morsel of white meat, made the same salute, and consumed it slowly, his eyes fixed on Armand.

It was as though Armand feasted upon the feast, drinking in that part of life which he couldn't share only longer except with his eyes.

When the boy had finished, he knelt with his arms around Armand's neck as if Armand was the one he loved. "Cant I see Claudia tonight," he begged.

"No my little one," Armand sighed as he slipped him into a brass cradle, "You are feverish. Perhaps tomorrow. Now, go to sleep."


	40. Chapter 40

Finally it was finished. He was to sleep, and Armand pulled up the brass gates and locked them so he couldn't get out.

And in minutes, heavy with Armand's hypnotizing command, he was dozing, and Armand sat opposite Louis, his large beautiful eyes tranquil and seemingly innocent.

Louis dropped his eyes, saying, "You told me, to say nothing of m y origin, why is this?" Louis looked up at him as he finished his sentence.

Armand regarded him with a slight wonder.

Louis was weak since the boy's mention of Claudia had brought back memories of their fight. He looked away from Armand again, to the painting on the wall.

"Ask him about Lestat, what happened to him," I mind-spoke to Armand, "Accuse him if you must but please, do it quickly and softly."

"Did you kill this vampire who made you? Is that why you are here with him, why won't you say his name," Armand asked quickly in an almost gentle voice.

"Accuse Santiago so he has a target, so he only thinks that Celeste put ideas into some of the others' heads, a rumor merely," I plotted. I wanted to get Celeste away from Louis, my Louis. Jealousy had gotten to me.

After all she was older, wiser, and more powerful.

I couldn't help but be intimidated, even a bit jealous of her because of that and more.

"Santiago thinks that you did," Armand muttered.

"And if this is true, or if we can't convince you otherwise," Louis put his arms around me, "You would try to destroy us?" His grip around me tightened, and he held me closer.

"You wouldn't," I begged Armand as Louis's body came within my child arm's length. I put my arms around his neck as he scooped me gracefully into his lap.

"I would not try to do anything to you," Armand said calmly.

I settled into Louis's lap relieved. I knew he wouldn't do anything to Louis or me, yet still it was nice to hear him confess this to me out loud in words.

Armand's eyes locked on mine once I was settled. "I would never harm you," he mind-spoke to me, "nor try anything."

"I know. I trust you," I mind-spoke back.

"But as I told you, I am not the leader here in the sense that you asked," Armand warned us.

"Yet they believe you to be the leader, don't they," Louis questioned.

"Santiago at least seems to," I mused.

"And Santiago," Louis continued his argument, then softened some as he realized; "You shoved him out."

"How were you able to do that so easily," I asked.

"I'm more powerful than Santiago, older. Santiago is older than you, Dramana, but he is younger than you, Louis," Armand said as he looked at me, then Louis. His voice was simple, devoid of pride. These were facts.

"We want no quarrel with you," Louis admitted.

"Armand, I know a quarrel has already begun, please warn him of the troubles lowering with Santiago and his followers. I know he will start something if he hasn't already," I mind-spoke to Armand.

"It's begun," Armand sighed, "But not with me. With those above."

"Because they believe we murdered one of our kind," I asked.

"But what reason has he to suspect us," Louis tried to brush off the possibility that they, or anyone, might know of what we've done.

"How could they know," I asked.

Armand seemed to be thinking now, his eyes cast down, his chin resting on his closed fist. After a while, which seemed interminable, he looked up.

"What," I said softly.

"I could give you reasons," Armand said almost in a frightening manner. "That you are too silent. That the vampires of the world are a small number and live in terror of strife amongst themselves and choose their fledglings with great care, making certain that they respect the other vampires mightily. There are fifteen vampires in this house, and the number is jealously guarded. And weak vampires are feared; I should say this also. That you are flawed is obvious to them: you feel too much, you think too much." He looked to Louis. "As you said yourself, vampire detachment is not of great value to you. And then there is this," he looked at me, "mysterious child: a child who can never grow," he reached out and his hand brushed a curl of my hair.

Louis's grip tightened on me slightly.

Armand's hand withdrew as he continued, "Never be self-sufficient."

"Haven't you ever wanted to save someone you kill," Louis sighed. He was talking about Claudia and me.

"No, he replied calmly.

"But what about Denis," I asked softly, "Don't you love him?"

"Yes," Armand admitted softly. Then he looked at me seriously. "But I would not make a vampire of that boy there, not if his life, which is so precious to me, were the serious danger because he is too young, his limbs not strong enough, his mortal cup barely tasted; yet you he turned you into what you are now," Armand said. He paused. He continued with a conclusion, "So you see, you bring with you these flaws and this mystery and yet you are completely silent. And so you can not be trusted. And Santiago looks for an excuse." He paused again, "But there is another reason closer to the truth than all those things which I've just said to you.

"Ant that is," Louis asked, having been amazed by everything that Armand had pointed out.

"And that is simply this: that when you first encountered Santiago in the Latin Quarter you…" Armand chuckled.

"What has he done," I asked slowly, running the events of that night through my mind.

"Unfortunately," Armand said slowly, "Called him a buffoon."

Louis sat back in his chair.

I laughed remembering this.

Armand laughed as well and smiled at Louis and I. "It would have been better all around if you had said nothing," Armand said after a while. He smiled at Louis, making me a bit jealous.

Louis sat thinking for a long time. Louis looked Armand in the eyes as if looking for answers.

"Please warn him," I mind-spoke to Armand.

"Listen to me," he instructed Louis, "You must get away from them. Your face hides nothing. You would yield to me now were I to question you. Look into my eyes."

I was jealous of this; I knew that it was true: that Louis would be so open with Armand, and yet he sometimes wouldn't be with me.

Louis looked away from Armand on one of those small paintings in his room.

I looked up at the painting that Louis looked so intently upon. It was a picture of Madonna and child.

Louis surprised me when he spoke again with his words, "Stop them if you will, advise them that we," his grip on me tightened slightly, "Don't mean any harm."

"Please talk to them," I begged.

Armand gave no answer.

"Why can't you do this," Louis shouted angrily. He stood, making me slide off his lap. "You say yourself we're not your enemies, no matter what we've done," Louis ranted.

Armand interrupted this and sighed, "I have stopped them for the time being."

"You have the power over them as you could use to stop them entirely," I objected, "Why not use what you have!" I had made the mistake of getting caught up in the moment, the emotion of jealousy that Armand loves Louis, my Louis. The one who I desire but shall never have.

"But I don't want such power over them as would be necessary to stop them entirely," Armand sighed in protest.

"Why not," I demanded. I can be such a high-strung hot-headed monster sometimes.

"Because," Armand sighed, "if I exercise such power, then I must protect it. I will make enemies. And I would have forever to deal with my enemies when all I want here is a certain space," he looked at me and Louis, "A certain peace."

Louis and I sat on the floor. To this day I still don't remember what rendered me to calm down, but I believe it was Armand.

Yet as this happened he continued to speak, "or not be here at all. I accept the scepter of sorts they've given me, but not to rule over them, only to keep them at a distance."

"I should have known," Louis proclaimed, his eyes still fixed on that painting.

"Then you must stay away," Armand sighed sadly, "Celeste has a great deal of power, being the oldest by one night, and she is jealous of your childrens' beauty. And Santiago, as you can see, is only waiting for a shred of proof that you're outlaws."

Louis turned slowly and looked at Armand again where he sat with that eerie vampire stillness, as if he were in fact not alive at all. The moment lengthened.

I heard his words just as if he were speaking them again: "You are indeed just as Lestat has described you." And I felt such irony.

Celeste was jealous of MY beauty?!

But I was most jealous of hers. I could see Celeste and her twin Estelle now, heir delicate features, their graceful hands made hard as glass by vampire nature, their bewitching blind eyes, their exquisite form, their black curls and dresses, everything.

They were icons of black vampiric beauties.

The envy I felt.

Louis shut his eyes as I opened my own and looked at him.

"Do you know why I am here," Armand whispered to Louis seducingly, "To help you."

"To tell us what to do," I guessed.

"What am I to do," Louis whispered.

"Go away," Armand gave in sadly.

"Go away from them," Louis demanded, "Go away from you? After all these years…"

"They don't matter to you," Armand gasped.

Louis smiled and nodded.

"What is it you want to do," Armand said as if he wanted to help Louis. And his voice assumed the gentlest sympathetic tone.

"You should know," I said in a rude tone that made my jealousy of them both apparent.

"Don't you know," Louis gasped, almost seeming to ignore me and my rude comment, "Don't you have the power?"

It almost seemed as if I weren't in the room, as if they were so in love that they didn't even realize or remember that I was there.

"Power," Armand asked love struck, he just wanted to hear Louis speak again.

"Cant you read my thoughts," Louis stammered slightly, "As if they were words?"

Armand shook his head sighing, "Not the way you mean. I only know the danger to you and that child is really because it's real to you." Armand looked at me and Louis did the same as well.

"It's true we do know of the danger," I finally spoke. I paused before asking, almost afraid of the answer.

"What else do you know of us," I forced myself to ask. I was so afraid that he knew of my jealousy of him.

"And," Armand continued, "I know your loneliness," he looked at Louis gently, "Even with their love is almost more terrible than you can bear."

Louis stood up and scooped me up, saying, "I ask you to keep them away from us." Louis began to walk towards the door.

"Don't go," Armand begged as he stood up.

"I have no choice," Louis said.


	41. Chapter 41

"It's time we take our leave," I suggested. Once we were in the passage I heard Armand catching up to us. "Wait, Louis," I whispered in his ear, "We're being rude."

Louis sighed and nodded at me with a slight grunt, "You're right." Louis turned and looked at Armand who had caught up to us now.

Armand stood beside Louis, eyes level with Louis's eyes, and in his hand he held a key.

I slipped out of Louis's arms and went to the door that led to the coven's hideaway.

Armand pressed the key into Louis's hand. "There is a door there," he whispered into Louis's ear, gesturing to the dark end, which I'd thought to be only for my use, "And a stairs to the side street which no one uses but myself. Go this way now, so you can avoid the others. You are anxious. They will see this."

Jealousy bubbled up in my emotions because Armand was sharing our secret passageway with Louis, and not telling him that I've used it by lying to him about it. Yet it hurt to know that Armand was saying what he should.

Louis shouldn't know that I've got a key as well, or that I've been here before.

I walked towards the door as Armand spoke.

Louis turned around to go at once.

Armand put a hand on his shoulder and told him, "But let me tell you this." He lightly pressed the back of his hand as Louis's heart. He put his body against Louis's. "Use the power inside you. Don't abhor it anymore, use that power! And when they see you in the streets above, use that power to make your face as a mask and think as you gaze at them as on anyone! Beware. Take that word as if it were an amulet I'd given you to wear about your neck. And when your eyes meet Santiago's eyes, or the eyes of another vampire, speak to them politely what you will, but think of that word and that word only. Remember what I say," He told him.

"Why do you speak to me," Louis asked softly.

"I speak to you simply because you respect what is simple," Armand answered plainly, "Yu understand this. That's your strength."


	42. Chapter 42

Louis took the key and suddenly fainted.

Armand caught him.

I begged Armand to give him to me, and he reluctantly did so. I carried him outside and as soon as we were out of the passage he began to stir. I clumsily put him on his own feet and began stepping into the dark side street behind the theatre.

Armand followed us out and told Louis, "Come here to me, when you can."

"Leave us now," I requested Armand as I looked down sadly.

Louis looked around for him, but he couldn't see him. As we were walking home, Armand caught up with us again.

He came up behind Louis and told him that he must not leave the Hotel Saint-Gabriel, that he must not give the others the shred of evidence of guilt that they wanted.

"Evidence of what," Louis asked.

"Of killing another vampire," Armand said softly as if in remorse.

"Why is that so forbidden," I asked curiously.

"You see," he answered, "killing other vampires is very exciting; that is why it is forbidden under penalty of death."

"That is all we wish to know," I excused Armand, although it was not true at all. I wanted to know more, much much more.

He left us then.

I looked around at the Paris streets shinning with rain, the tall narrow buildings on the side of me, the shut door that made a solid dark wall behind me, and then behind Louis. I watched him slowly move away from the boulevard and then followed him so we were swallowed by the darker streets, as so often streets have done.

Louis took my hand as we were surrounded by darkness.

Out of the mist which had followed the rain, a man was walking towards Louis.

I remember him as roaming on the landscape of darkness, because the night around me was dark and black. The hill might have been anywhere in the world, and the soft lights of Paris were on amorous shimmering in the fog.

And sharp-eyed and drunk, he was walking blindly into the arms of death itself, his pulsing fingers reaching out to touch the very bones of Louis's face.

I released Louis's hand and made way to the entrance of another dark alleyway.

"Pass by," Louis commanded him, "Beware."

The man didn't listen. He slipped his bold drunken arm around Louis's waist, "Let me paint you," the man begged, "Let me paint you." "It's warm in my studio," he continued, "Warm! And I'm rich, rich! I'll pay you."

I drifted into a shadow that was closer to them and saw his adoring eyes. I smelled the sweet smell of oils that streaked his loose shirt.

Louis followed him, through Montmartre and I stalked them.

"You are not a member of the dead," I heard Louis telling him.

He was leading Louis through an overgrown garden, through the sweet, wet grass, and he was laughing and Louis was saying, "Alive, alive."

I stopped for a moment in the garden and sat down in one of the flower beds. I picked a bouquet of winter lilies, took off my shoes, and ran after the drunken man. I heard Louis's voice and found them easily.

Louis said, "Beware."

I stood behind the man, bit him in one of his blood veins on the back of his leg, and drank. I pulled him away from Louis.

He dropped his brush and Louis took him from me.

"Die," Louis whispered to him seductively.

He held Louis loosely, now his head bowed against Louis's coat.

"Die," Louis said coldly, and he felt him struggle to look up at him. Louis drank again and again, until at least he slipped, limp and shocked and near to death on the floor.

Yet his eyes did not close.

Louis settled before the dead man's canvas, weak, at peace, gazing down at him, at his vague graying eyes, his own hands florid, his skin luxuriously warm.

I went to him and sat in his lap. I took his arms and wrapped them around me.

"I am mortal again," Louis whispered, "I am alive. With your blood I am alive."

The man's eyes closed.

Louis sat back against the wall, gazing at the mirror across the room.

"He had been a fast walker," I commented as I tossed the bouquet of flowers on his dead body. I looked at the canvas.

A sketch was all he'd done, a series of bold black lines that never the less made up Louis's face and shoulders perfectly, and the color was already begun in dabs and splashes: the green of his eyes, the white of his cheek. He had even captured his expression perfectly, and there was nothing of horror in it. Those green eyes gazed at me from out of that loosely drawn shape with a mindless innocence, the expressionless wonders of that overpowering craving which he had not understood.

Louis, my master, my love, lips parted and slack, hair carless, a hand carved in the lap and limp. A mortal Louis. Louis began to laugh insanely.

It scared me. I ran to him and launched myself onto his lap, putting my arms tightly around him. I yelled at him, "Louis, stop that! Stop it!" I myself too had begun to cry at the thought of him going insane. I clutched myself to him.

He put his hands to his face and finally stopped laughing so much. Instead it was replaced with quiet forced laughs that came out as soft whimpers, even silent cries.

"It's ok Louis, its ok," I said softly as tears continued to slide down my face.

Louis took his fingers down after a while and there were the stains of tears tingling with mortal blood. Louis, as if in a trance, pulled me of his lap and gathered the painting and started to flee with it from the small house.


	43. Chapter 43

When suddenly up from the floor, the man rose with an animal groan and clutched at Louis's boot, his hands sliding off the leather. With some colossal spirit, he reached up for the painting and held fast to it with his whitening hands. "Give it back," he growled at Louis, "Give it back!" And they held fast, the two of them, Louis staring at him and his own hands that held so easily what he sought so desperately to rescue, as if he would take it to heaven or hell.

Louis was not himself; insanity had taken over him for the moment.

I watched him tear the painting loose from him, wretch the man to his lips with one arm and gash the man's throat in rage. Blood flew at my gown as I passed him while I ran home. "Little girls shouldn't be out alone," I heard someone say from the shadows. I jumped a bit and looked back into the shadows.

Santiago emerged from the darkness. "I've missed you," he said tenderly as he took a step towards me.

I stepped away from him. "Santiago, leave me alone," I told him.

"Dramana, why," Santiago gasped as he reached out to me.

"Don't," I told him as I began to walk backwards.

"Why Dramana," Santiago demanded as he grabbed me by my elbows.

"Let me go Santiago," I commanded him as I wriggled in his grasp.

"Why, so you can go home to those murderers," Santiago growled, "So you can go see Louis?!"

"Claudia and Louis are NOT murderers, "I ripped my arms out of his grasp. I glared at him.

"Then how did your master get burnt," Santiago demanded, "I heard him talking to Armand." He approached me again and told me, "They turned on him because he didn't know anything. They'll turn on you too sooner or later." "You need to come with me," he put his arms around me, "I'll keep you safe always. You'll be more of my daughter than you ever were Louis's, and you'll have a mother."

"No," I shouted as I shot out of his grasp, "Never! I'll never go with you anywhere anytime, never ever. Just leave me alone!"


	44. Chapter 44

"I never want to see you ever again," I admitted to him. I ran this time, but Santiago caught up with me soon enough.

"Please, please Dramana, come with me," he insisted brutally as he reached out for me, but scratched me. His nails dug into my right arm and left bloody lines in my forearm.

I looked at them and watched it heal. I glared back at him and shook my head silently.

He began to say something, but I interrupted him with a cold, "NO." I turned away from him and began walking away. Before I knew what was happening I found myself flying to the ground. I was collapsed on the ground in a second if not less. I looked up immediately and saw Santiago standing above me with an angry look upon his face, but pain in his eyes.

"If you won't come with me, then I'll have to kill you," he informed me, "It's for your own good. If you live with them, you'll only feel pain, so you can't live unless you're under my protection." "And since you wont come, I'll have to kill you," he said softly before lunging towards me.

I raised my claws towards him and plunged my claws all the way into his eyes. I rose then and ran.

Santiago screamed as my claws sunk into his eyeballs.

As I ran I heard him yell to me, "Wait, Dramana! Come back!" I didn't listen and blocked his voice from my ears and mind. I went directly home after aimlessly wandering a few blocks to make sure Santiago wasn't following. Entering the rooms of the Hotel Saint Gabriel, I found Louis holding on to the marble mantle of the painting.

His head was bowed and his hands hook as if he was shaking insatiably of fear, I couldn't tell why.

I went to him and took his free hand in both of mine. It was then that I sensed a human in this house: in this very room. I could smell her perfume distinctly: it smelled of wood carvings, paint, and fabric, possibly velvet. I looked up and saw a woman seated calmly at the lavish table where Claudia attended to her hair; and so still she sat, so utterly without fear, her green taffeta sleeves reflected in the tilted mirrors, her skirts reflected, that she was not one still woman but a gathering of women.

Her dark-red hair was parted in the middle and drawn back to her ears though a dozen little ringlets escaped to make a frame for her pale face.

Louis looked up to see her.

And she was looking at Louis two calm, violet eyes and a child's mouth that seemed almost obdurately soft, obdurately the cupid's brow unsullied by paint or personality: and the moth smiled and she said, as those eyes seemed to fire, "Yes, he's as you said he would be, and I love him already."

"What did you say," I whispered in shock.

The woman looked at me then Claudia. "He's as you said," she repeated to Claudia.

"Come here," I called to her.

She rose now gently lifting that abundance of dark taffeta, and the three small mirrors emptied at once.

"Claudia, leave us," I ordered.

Louis turned to see Claudia far off on the immense bed, her small face rigidly calm though she clung to the silk certain with a tight fist.

I recognized the woman now.

Claudia and I had bought many dolls from her before. We visited her many times before.

She owned a doll shop to honor the death of her little girl. She was a sad doll-maker. The woman stood there waiting for Louis to make a move.

"Madeleine," Claudia said under her breath, "Louis is shy." And she watched with cold eyes s Madeleine only smile, when she said this and, drawing closer to Louis, put both of her hands to the lace fringe around her throat, moving it back so he could seethe two small marks there.

"Get away from Louis," I growled at her.

Then the smile died on her lips.

"You're acting as a common whore," I told her.

Her lips became at once sullen and sensual as her eyes narrowed. "A whore am I," she questioned as she took on the character of one. She looked away from me and back to Louis. She breathed the word, "Drink."

Louis turned away from her, his fist rising, his hold of his first and Claudia was looking up at him with relentless eyes.

"Do it Louis," she commanded, "Because I can not do it." Her voice was painfully clam, all the emotion under the hard, measured tone.

"Why can't you do it yourself," I demanded.

"I haven't the size, I haven't the strength. You saw to that when you made me! Do it," Claudia accused Louis.

Louis broke from her, clutching his wrist as if she'd burned it. Louis looked to the door and Claudia and Madeleine stared at him.

Claudia stared at him, pleading him to make Madeleine one of us.

Madeleine stared at Louis in a willing and patient way. She had learned patience in her doll shop.

Claudia now turned away from Louis, almost as if she'd been instantly defeated.


	45. Chapter 45

Claudia sank back on the bed, her head bowed as she sobbed softly, "I'm tired of being so alone."

Meanwhile Madeleine had settled into one of the velvet chairs by the fire, with the rustling and iridescence of her taffeta dress surrounding her like part of the mystery of her, of her dispassionate eyes which watched Claudia and Louis now, the fever of her pale face.

Louis turned to Madeleine and asked her, "How do we appear to you?"

Madeleine had been looking at Claudia. She broke her gaze and looked up at him.

"I ask you…how do we appear," Louis demanded, "Do you think us beautiful, magical, our white skin, our fierce eyes?"

I went and stood next to Louis.

He put his arm around me. He continued to speak, "Oh I remember perfectly what mortal vision was, the dimness of it, and how the vampire's beauty burned through that veil, so powerfully alluring, so utterly deceiving! Drink, you tell me. You haven't the vaguest conception under God of what you ask!"

Claudia rose from the bed and came towards Louis. "How dare you!" she whispered. "How dare you make the decision for both of us!"

"He's doing what's best for Madeleine," I argued back. "What are you going to do if he dose that," I demanded.

"Do you know how I despise you!" Claudia demanded of Louis, "Do you know that I despise you with a passion that eats at me like a cancer!" Her small form trembled, her hands hovering over the pleated bodice of her yellow gown.

"Come Louis, we're obviously not wanted here," I told him as I took his hand and began to pull him around so his back was now turned to Claudia.

"Don't you look away from me!" Claudia screamed, "I am sick at heart with your looking away, with your suffering. You understand nothing. Your evil is that you can not e evil, and I must suffer for it. I tell you I will suffer no longer!"

Louis and I turned and face her once again.

Claudia was clearly angry. She was so angry in fact, that she grabbed Louis's hand so hard that her fingers bit into the flesh of his wrist.

Louis twisted, stepping back from her, floundering in the face of hatred, the rage rising like some dormant beast in her, looking out through her eyes.

I flung them apart. "What did he ever do to you," I demanded as I stood in between the two.

"Snatching me from mortal hands like two grim monsters in a nightmare fairy tale, you idle, blond parents! Fathers!" she spat the words.

"That's in the past," I reasoned with her, "What can we do for the past, to change it? We can only remember and regret the past there's nothing we can do."

Claudia seemed to think about this before looking at Louis. "Let tears gather in your eyes," she cursed him, "You haven't tears enough for what you've done to me."

"Why is he the one that needs to sob for you," I demanded, "You would have grown old and ugly and alone."

"Six more mortal years, seven, eight, "Claudia stammered.

"And what would have happened," I asked, "What do you find yourself so entitled to?"

Claudia now grew furious, "I might have had that shape," she screamed. Her pointed finger flew at Madeleine, whose hands had risen to her face, whose eyes were clouded over.

She had thought that Claudia was just an innocent girl who needed a mother.

Oh, how Claudia had deceived her!

Tears slid down Madeleine's face. Her moan was almost Claudia's name.

"We are much, much older than we appear," I told her.

Claudia looked at Madeleine now in envy.

"Her shape," I questioned, "Her parted hair, her hair behind her ears, her ringlets, her pale face, her child's mouth, her curves."

"Yes, that shape," she sobbed. Now remorse engulfed her voice, "I might have known what it was to walk at your side." She looked at Louis with painful eyes. Inside that pain, was the love for him that caused her the worst pain she had ever felt.

"But you could have," I told her, "If you could only have been happy to be with him! Just because you've been damned doesn't mean you can't be happy."

"Monsters," Claudia screamed, "To give me immortality in this hopeless guise, this helpless form!" The tears stood in her eyes. The words had dried away, drawn in, as it were, on her breast.

I was speechless.

"Now you give her to me!" she said, her head bowing, her curls tumbling down to make a concealing veil. "You give her to me. You do this, or you finish what you did to me that night in the hotel in New Orleans. I will not live with this hatred any longer; I will not live with this rage! I can not. I will not, abide it!"

"But," I said softly, "Claudia…"

And tossing her hair, she put her hands to her ears as if to stop the sound of her own words, her breath drawn in rapid gasps, the tears seeming to scald her cheeks.

Louis went to Claudia's side.

I couldn't believe that Claudia was suicidal.

Louis sunk to his knees at her side, and his arms were outstretched as if to enfold her. Yet he did nothing.

I hugged Claudia. "Do you really hate us so much that you'd rather die than be with us," I questioned softly.

She shook her head now, squeezing the tars out of her cheeks, her teeth clenched tight together.

"Tell Louis you love him," I mind-spoke to Claudia.

Louis looked so sad that it hurt.

"I love you still, that's the torment of it," Claudia confessed.

"Don't you really love Lestat too," I questioned.

"Lestat I never loved. But you! The measure of my hatred is that love. They are the same! Do you know how much I hate you," Claudia sobbed.

I couldn't even really make out what she was saying; it all was broken by her sobs.

She flushed at Louis though, the red film that covered her eyes.

"Yes," Louis whispered. He bowed his head.

But she was gone form him into the arms of Madeleine, who enfolded her desperately, as if she might protect Claudia from Louis- the irony of it, the pathetic irony- protect Claudia from herself.

"Comfort the child, Madeleine, if you can," I told her.

She began to stroke Claudia. She whispered to Claudia, "Don't cry, don't cry." Her hands stroking Claudia's face and her hair with a fierceness that would have bruised a human child.

But Claudia seemed lost against her breast suddenly, her eyes closed, her face smooth as if all passion were drained away from her, her arm sliding up around Madeleine's neck, her had falling against the taffeta and lace.

I stroked Claudia's arm, it felt like ice: cold and smooth.

She lay still, the tears staining her cheeks, as if all this that had risen to the surface had left her weak and desperate for oblivion, as if the room around her, as if Louis, were not there.

"You don't want to be one of us Madeleine," I told her coldly.

And there they

Re, together, a tender mortal crying unstintingly now, her warm arms holding what she could not possibly understand, this white and fierce and unnatural cold thing, she believed she loved. And if Louis and I had not felt for her, this mad and reckless woman flirting with the damned, if we had not felt all the sorrow for her, we would have wrested the demon thing from her arms, held it tight to us, denying over and over the words we'd just heard.

I looked to Louis.

But he knelt there still, thinking only. He sank back against the bed.

"Claudia, stop crying," I told her.

A long time before Madeleine was to know it, Claudia had ceased crying. She began to wipe her tears.

"Sit still," I told her.

She sat still as a statue on Madeleine's lap, her liquid eyes fixed on Louis.

"Ignore Madeleine, look at Louis, look how you've hurt him," I told her.

Claudia sat there oblivious to the soft, red hair that fell around her or the woman's hand that still stroked her.

Louis sat slumped against the bedpost, staring back at those vampire eyes.


	46. Chapter 46

"Madeleine, Claudia cant even feel you anymore," I told her coldly with a glare, "You don't belong here, you don't belong in this family of four…." I caught myself including Lestat again. Though I myself knew of his existence, I knew at the same time that Louis and Claudia didn't know and shouldn't, for now. "Three," I corrected myself in a whisper.

Madeleine was whispering in Claudia's ear, "Claudia, Claudia, please! I want to be with you forever. I love you! I want to be your mother, and do all you wish of me to do for you!" She was letting her tears fall into Claudia's tresses.

"Claudia, she shouldn't become one of us," I told her gently.

And gently Claudia said to her, "Leave us."

"No," Madeleine shook her head, holding tight to Claudia. And then she shut her eyes and trembled all over with some terrible vexation, some awful torment. You see, the woman was mad. She had been since she had lost her daughter.

But Claudia was leading her from the chair, and she was now shocked and white faced, the green taffeta ballooning around the small yellow silk dress. In the archway of the parlor they stopped and Madeleine stood as if confused, her hand at her throat beating like a wing, then going still. She looked around her like that hapless victim on the stage of the Theatres des Vampires who did not know where she was.

"Claudia, the doll," I told her, "Get Madison!" I was ready to go in search of the doll myself, but Claudia had gone for something. And I saw her emerge from the shadows with what appeared to be a large doll.

Louis rose on his knees to look at it. It was a doll, the doll of a little girl with raven hair and green eyes, adorned with lace and ribbons, sweet faced and wide eyed, it's porcelain feet tinkling as Claudia put it into Madeleine's arms.

And Madeleine's eyes appeared to harden as she held the doll, and her lips drew back from her teeth in a grimace as she stroked it's hair. She was laughing low under her breath.

"Claudia, she's beginning to get wild, lie her down," I instructed Claudia. When Madeleine gets wild, she tends to destroy things as she cries out Madison's name. I didn't want her destroying the hotel.

"Lie down," Claudia said to her, and together they appeared to sink into the cushions of the couch, the green taffeta rustling and giving way as Claudia lay with her and putting her arms around her neck.

Louis saw the doll sliding, dropping to the floor, yet Madeleine's hand groped for it and held it dangling, her own head thrown back, her eyes shut tight and Claudia's curls stroking her face.

Madeleine loved that doll so much that she would never let it go.

"Relax Louis," I suggested to him.

Louis settled back onto the floor and leaned against the soft, siding of the bed.


	47. Chapter 47

"Be patient, be still," Claudia spoke in a low voice that was barely above a whisper.

"Claudia, get up," I told her softly, "We need to talk alone with Louis."

Claudia got up.

"Madeleine, Madison, leave us," I said softly. You are probably wondering why I named the doll. You see, when the child wasn't even ten she had died in a fire years ago. Her name had been Madison. She had raven hair down to her shoulders, often kept in ringlet curls with pearl hair clips or some other form of jeweled clip adorning her shining hair. Her eyes were green and well defined below adorable red lines of eyebrows and a gentle smooth nose underneath them to balance her face. She had thin beautiful pink lips and a curved chin on the top of a willow's neck. She had a small well defined child's body, complete with small shoulders, a cute stomach, and matching ribcage, small arms and hands, as well as fingers and even smaller fingernails, thin little chicken legs and small flat duck's feet with itsy bitsy toes. She had been adorable. She often had worn girly fancy dresses. She looked the best in pinks. She had been a sweet innocent, almost curious child. Her eyes had twinkled so sparkly at the sight of a doll. So that is the story of the doll: she represents the lost Madison.


	48. Chapter 48

But back to the moment at hand: Louis looked up at Claudia who was standing there as if transfixed and lost in thought, all rancor and bitterness gone from her face, so that she had the blank expression of Madison.

"Do you have anything to say to Claudia, Louis," I asked gently. I was trying to end the silence, it was driving me mad. I wanted this argument to end.

"All you've said to me is true," Louis said to her, "I deserve your hatred. I've deserved it from those first moments when Lestat put you in my arms."

Claudia seemed unaware of Louis and her eyes were infused with a soft light. Her beauty burned into my jealousy of her. She was so beautiful. And then she said, wondering, "You could have killed me then despite him. You could have done it." Then her eyes rested on Louis calmly. "Do you wish to do it now," she demanded.

Louis grabbed Claudia.

"Claudia," I said in a breathlessly panicked voice, "She's being suicidal again." I was worried about Claudia now. She had been having these fits for at least what seemed like a year now.

"Do it now," Louis asked as he put his arm around Claudia, moving her closer to him.

"Yes, kill me," Claudia said softly.

"Are you mad, to say such things to me," Louis demanded in a worried tone, "Do I want to do it now?!"

"I want you to do it," she said, "Bend down no as you did then, draw the blood out of me drop by drop, all you have the strength for; push my heart to the brink. I am small, you can take me. I won't resist you; I am something frail you can crush like a flower."

"What are you saying," I yelled in horror.

"You mean these things? You mean what you say to me," Louis asked.

"Do you say this because you know that you cant be killed in any other way," I demanded, "is it because you know that cuts cant hurt us and knives cant harm us?"

"Why don't you place the knife here, why don't you turn it," Louis demanded in pain. "That would hurt less than loosing you." He mimed the action of stabbing himself in the heart and twisting the knife.

"Would you die with me," Claudia asked with a sly, mocking smile. There was a long silence. "Would you in fact die with me," she pressed. She went to me now in anger. "Don't you understand what is happening to me," Claudia sobbed to me, "That he's killing me, that master vampire who has you both in a thrall, that he won't share your love with me not a drop of it?" She turned back to Louis. "I see his power in your eyes," she commented as she looked Louis in the eyes. "I see your misery, your distress, the love for him you can't hide," she mocked almost to Louis as he turned from her. "Turn around," Claudia ordered Louis roughly, "I'll make you look at me with those eyes that want him. I'll make you listen."

"She's doing this because she doesn't want you to leave her," I mind-spoke to Louis gently. I myself had just realized this.

"Don't say anymore, don't," Louis whispered. He spoke to Claudia, "I won't leave you. I've sworn to you, don't you see?"

"Give me Madeleine, I want a woman in this family," Claudia begged in an insisting tone.

"I can not give you that woman, "Louis yelled back.

"Why should he give her to you," I asked, trying to see Claudia's side of this argument.

"Give her to me so she can care for me, complete the guise I must have to live!" She ran to Louis and clung to the back of his legs.

I realized now how neglected Claudia felt. At the same time I was hurt that Claudia didn't think I could take care of her. Silly emotions, always foolish. "What will happen if he dose this," I questioned.

"And then Armand can have you,' Claudia gave in.

"Why are you making this into such a big fight," I questioned curiously. There was a long silence as blood tears ran down her face.

"I am fighting for my life," she finally admitted softly.

"Is what she says true," I asked Louis in mind-speak. I was confused. How was Claudia fighting for her life? Was this the only way? Was she threatening suicide if she didn't get what she wanted? I was so confused.

Louis all but shoved Claudia off of him. "No, no it's madness, it's witchery," Louis cried out almost as if he were mad, "it's you who will not share me with him, it's you who wants every drop of that love. If not from me then from her." He pointed me out.

"I'll always love you Claudia," I told her softly yet sincerely.

"But Armand wants me dead," Claudia screamed.

"He overpowers you, that's all," Louis told her, "he disregards you, and it's you who wish him dead the way that you killed Lestat."

Claudia was silent as more blood tears ran down her face.

"Well," Louis decided as he walked towards Claudia, "You won't make me a party to this death," he roughly took her in his arms, "I tell you not this death!" He began to cry into her shoulder. He told her again, "I will not make her one of us; I will not damn the legions of mortals who'll die at her hand if I do! Your power over me is broken." He released Claudia, "I will not!"

"I hate you," Claudia lied.

I could see that he had been hurt by this remark. I wished Lestat were there at that moment.

Louis shrank away from Claudia and began to pace, his hands opening and closing at his sides.

I reached for Louis's hand, then suddenly he put his hands to his ears and tears flowed from his eyes. Just as Louis began crying Claudia began crying too.

I ran into the other room to try and escape the pain that was flooding the room. When I shut the door to escape I turned and saw a new coffin.

Claudia entered the room.

I couldn't even say a word to her, I was in such shock. I turned and looked out the window. I found myself at the open window feeling the slow mist of the rain. It glistened on the fronds of the ferns, on sweet white flowers that listed, bowed and finally broke from their stems creating a carpet of petal littering the little balcony pounded softly by the rain.

"What he has done to me can never be undone," Claudia whispered softly.

"Perhaps," I replied monotonously. I didn't want to leave Louis alone any longer. I ran from the room and burst into the next room. I didn't see Louis. But as I searched the room for him, I soon found him in the shadows of the door.

He looked so alone, so sad, so depressed about Claudia.

I thought it would help Louis to get out of the house. He needed to feel loved again. So I went outside and called to him, "Louie, Louie my love, my darling, come outside." I watched him move slowly though the rooms. Once he reached me I hugged him tightly. We began to walk.


	49. Chapter 49

After a few blocks I pointed out gently, "You know, it wouldn't be so bad if you turned Madeleine."

"How could you say such a thing," Louis shot angrily.

"She wants it," I pointed out.

"She doesn't KNOW," Louis pointed out.

"But she could learn from Claudia," I told him, "Claudia needs a mother. She needs a female companion to be with her when we visit Armand."

"She could come with us," Louis invited sadly.

"You know she doesn't like him," I sighed.

Louis sighed as well. "He'll grow on her," Louis guessed.

"I don't think so," I estimated," Claudia likes Madeleine, not Armand." We walked in silence for a few more neighborhoods before one of us spoke again.

"She really cares about her," he sighed.

'Yes," I declared, "She's like the beauty that she can never be. She admires her for her beauty and her maturity. She loves her for her beauty, her curly hairs all over her body, her ripe bosoms, her lady like face, every aspect of her she loves."

"She'll take care of Madeleine, as she will for her," Louis measured.

"Madeleine thinks of her as the baby girl she lost, the daughter she can never have again," I explained.

Louis was clearly considering things.

"In a way," I broke the silence, "Claudia is replacing the daughter she lost. She's the new and improved daughter. She doesn't want to loose her. She loves her as her own. She loves her as if she were her doll or daughter."

"If she loves her that much," Louis sighed as he turned around. He reached a hand back to me.

It only took me a few seconds to take it. I tightly clutched his hand with both of mine and we made our way back to the house.


	50. Chapter 50

We moved silently through the rooms, gently dividing the doors until Louis and I saw in the dim light cast by the flickering gas flames behind us, that sleeping woman lying in Louis's shadow on the couch, the doll limp against her breasts. "Wake her, I'll get Claudia," I suggested to him as I released his hand slowly. I quickly silently ran to the bedroom where I had seen Claudia last. I entered the room to find Claudia looking at herself in the reflection of her scissors.

"He really won't turn her, will he," she sighed.

"Yes he will, he is going to right now," I informed her as I put my hand on her shoulder.

Claudia turned around sharply and went to the door. She peered around the door and looked at Louis.

"Will you care for her, Madeleine," I heard Louis ask Madeleine.

She didn't even notice, she was so intent upon Louis. "Yes!" Madeleine repeated it again desperately.

"Is this what you believe her to be, a doll," Louis asked Madeleine, his hand closing on the doll's head, only to have her snatch it away from him.

She clenched her teeth as she glared at him.

"What is she really," I asked Madeleine as I went to Louis's side.

"A child who can't die! That's what she is," she said as if she were pronouncing a curse, I'm done with dolls," she said, shoving it away from her into the cushions of the couch.

"You mean you are done wit her," I soothed her softly as I picked up the doll.

She was fumbling with something on her breast, something she wanted Louis to see and not to see, her fingers catching hold of it and closing over it.

I knew what it was, had noticed it before. A locket fixed with a gold pin.

Her round features morphed in passion, her mouth becoming distorted.

"The child, who did die," Louis guessed watching her.

She shook her head, her hand pulling hard on the locket so the pin ripped the taffeta. It was fear I saw in her now, a consuming panic. And her hand bled as she opened it from the broken pin.

"Madeleine," Claudia gasped as she ran to her side.

I took the locket from her and took it to Louis as Claudia feasted upon Madeleine's blood.

Louis took the locket from my fingers.

"My daughter," she whispered, her lip rambling with sorrow.

Louis looked at the picture. It was a doll's face on the small fragment of porcelain, Claudia's face, a baby face; a saccharine, sweet mockery of innocence, an artist had painted there, a child with raven hair like the doll.

And the mother, terrified, was staring at the darkness in front of her.

"Grief," Louis whispered.

"I'm done with grief," Madeleine shouted as tears ran down her face.

Claudia had finished drinking by now was sitting in her lap.

"If you know how I long to have your power; I'm ready for it. I hunger for it," and Madeleine turned to Louis, breathing deeply, so that her breasts seemed to swell under her dress. A violent frustration rent her face then.

"Isn't there any other way you can persuade him," Claudia sighed.

Madeleine turned away from Louis, shaking, her head, her curls.

"How could you," Louis sighed knowing that humans are not likely to persuade vampires.

"If you were a mortal man: man and monster!" she said angrily. "If I could only show you my power," and she smiled malignantly, defiantly at Louis. "I could make you want me, desire me. But you're unnatural!" Her hand hovered over her breasts, seeming to caress them like a man's hand.

I knew she was beautiful.

She had a small enticing waist, round plump curvy breasts, delicate pouting lips. She looked away from him now in disgust.


	51. Chapter 51

"And cruelly, surely," Louis called her gaze back to him, "Did you love this child?"

I will never forget her face then, the violence in her, the absolute hatred.

"Yes," she all but hissed the words at Louis. "How dare you!" She reached for the locket even as Louis clutched it.

"But Madeleine, you said that you were done with her," I objected.

Madeleine broke out into tears. "I can't be done with her," she cried, "I cant." In sorrow she reached out to the first person she saw: Louis. She had her hand out towards him. She touched his waistcoat and opened her fingers there, pressing them against her chest.

"Louis, comfort her, please," I begged him through mind-speak.

Louis was on his knees, drawing close to her, her hair brushing his face as she buried her face upon his shoulder and continued to cry. "Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh my dear," he whispered in her ear. "You will be done with her in time," he reassured her.

"There will never be enough time in my mortal life to give me enough motivation to be done with her," Madeleine sobbed.

"But you will have enough time," Louis reassured her.

Madeleine gasped.

"Now listen to me," Louis instructed her, "Hold fast to me when I take you," Louis said to her.

Madeleine's head lifted. Her eyes met with Louis's. Her mouth fell open.

"And when the swoon is strongest, listen all the harder for the beating of my heart. Hold and say over and over, "I will live."" Louis instructed her.

"Yes, yes," she was nodding, her heart pounding with her excitement. She touched his neck then his collar as if she wanted his shirt unbuttoned for the deed to make it more passionate.

Louis put his hand upon hers to stop her. He clutched it tightly, instructing her still, "Look beyond me at that distant light; don't take your eyes off of it, not for a second, and say over and over, "I will live.""

"Yes," she declared again.

But before she could even finish this single syllable Louis had broken her flesh with his fangs and bit into her.

She fell against him, her breasts crushing against him. As the swoon began her body began to arch up, helpless.

I could see her eyes and her taunting, provocative mouth.

Louis lifted her as her hands dropped limp to both sides.

"We are loosing her, Louis," I shouted as I ran over and took her hand.

"Tight, tight," Louis whispered over the hot stream of her blood.

"Madeleine, Madeleine, open look at me," I begged as I felt her hand growing colder.

"The lamp," Louis whispered to her, "look at it!"

Her head dropped back from Louis, her eyes dull to the point of death.

Louis didn't move.

I reached up and took his hand. "Louis, you need to feed her," I reminded him, "you can't let her die!" I could tell he was giving things a second thought. Perhaps he thought she only wanted to live forever out of guilt of her daughter dyeing. Perhaps he thought she was using this as a form of punishment for herself. But he could not let this woman die now, not since he had promised her eternity to be done with her daughter. "Louis," I said his name again as I put my hand upon the bottom of his wrist and pushed it up gently towards his face.

Louis sat there still focused on the lamp.

Finally I shoved his wrist to his lips.

Louis soon bit his own wrist and found himself tasting his own blood. He turned it downwards towards Madeleine.

But when he tried to give it to her she was terrified. "I feel like I'm going to die," she whispered softly as she turned her head away from the blood.

"You will," I reassured her as I cradled her head in my lap and turned it up to face Louis again, "But you will be granted a new life if you drink."

Louis forced his wrist into her mouth. "Drink it. Drink," Louis instructed her.

But she lay as if dead.

Louis gathered her close to him, the blood pouring over her lips.

She opened her eyes and opened her mouth to the blood. Her hands soon closed tight on Louis's arm and she began to suck on his wrist.

Louis began to rock her as if she were his new daughter. It made me almost jealous for a few minutes. He began to whisper to her softly of death and what is soon to come of her. Louis was soon breaking into a swoon himself.

I ran to him and hugged him tightly pulling at his arms.

This made Madeleine's finger dig deep into his arms cutting him, scoring him.

Louis backed away from her and pulled her with him.

Madeleine moaned as he pulled away from him.

Louis continued to back away when I realized he was trying to get away from her.

I reached out to him and pulled at Madeleine, but she would not budge. I called to Claudia for help.

Claudia took Madeleine and I took Louis and we both pulled them apart.

Louis wretched free from her and fell away from her, clutching his bleeding wrist tightly with his own hand.

Madeleine stared at Louis, the blood staining her open mouth. She seemed to stare for an eternity until she collapsed into a trembling shape.

"Louis," I called to him as I went over to his wrist. I gently took his hand from his wrist and kissed it. This was when I realized how much blood he had lost. It was as if almost all of his life were gone from him. I quickly bit my wrist and held it up to Louis's lips.

He reached out for it and missed grasping it the first time. The second time he grasped it and brought it to his lips. I soon began, to feel the swoon that Louis was in not so many moments ago. I closed my eyes as I began to swoon. In my mind I saw him kissing Madeleine. Blood tears would have begun running down my face if Louis were not taking so much blood from me. I felt his powerful pull. Every blood vessel felt it. I was threaded through and through with his pulling, his heart beginning to beat more fierce almost matching my own. I suddenly cried out, "Louis, stop. Louis, stop it!" I backed away from him, yanking my wrist back to me. As my wrist was released I fell back from him bumping into Madeleine who stood beside the low gas lamp in the other room. I looked back over to Louis to see how far I had flung myself from Louis to get him to let go of my wrist. I had used such force that I had hurtled myself into the next room.

"Don't touch it," Claudia told Madeleine as she gently guided her away from the lamp.

But Madeleine had seen the flowers on the balcony and she was drawing close to them now, her outstretched palms brushing the petals and then pressing the droplets of rain to her face.

Louis by now had risen and was hovering on the ridges of the room, watching Madeleine's every move, how she took the flowers and crushed them in her hands and let the petals fall all around her and how she pressed her fingertips to the mirrors and stared into her own eyes.

I walked over to Louis and pulled out my handkerchief. While he watched Madeleine I bound the wound.

Claudia began to dance with Madeleine as Madeleine's skin grew paler and paler in the unsteady golden light.

Madeleine scooped Claudia into her arms, and Claudia rode round in circles with her, her small face alert and wary behind her smile. And then Madeleine weakened. She stepped backwards and seemed to lose her balance.

"Claudia," I called out to her in alarm, "Madeleine, put Claudia down!"

Madeleine quickly righted herself and let Claudia go gently down to the ground.

On tiptoe, Claudia embraced her. "Louis," she signaled to me under her breath, "Louis…"

"Louis, don't let Claudia see this," I requested of him, "I don't think she remembers dyeing herself. I think it would only worry her and horrify her to have to witness Madeleine's death."

Louis beckoned for Claudia to come away.

Claudia went to Louis and took his hand.

And Madeleine, not seeming even to see us, was staring at her outstretched hands.

Claudia began to turn back to look at Madeleine.

Madeleine's face was blanched.

Claudia took a step towards Madeleine again.

Madeleine's face became drawn, and suddenly she was scratching at her lips.

Claudia began to pull her hand out of Louis's.

"Louis," I cautioned him in mind-speak, "Claudia's slipping past you."

Madeleine stared at the dark stains on her fingertips.

"No, no," Louis cautioned Claudia gently, taking her hand and holding her close to his side.

A long moan escaped Madeleine's lips.

"If you want to know what is happening, just ask Louis," I told Claudia gently.

"Louis," Claudia whispered in that preternatural voice which Madeleine could not yet hear.

"Tell her what is happening," I suggested to Louis.

"She is dying," Louis whispered to her, brushing her hair back from her ear, his eyes never leaving Madeleine, who was wandering from mirror to mirror, the tears flowing freely now, the body giving up its life.

"We died once too," I whispered to Claudia.

"Your child mind just can't remember," Louis reassured her, "You were spared it, it left no mark on you."

"But, Louis, if she dies," Claudia cried.

"Is the blood in her too weak," I questioned.

"No," Louis knelt down, seeing the distress in Claudia's small face, "The blood was strong enough, she will live. But she will be afraid, terribly afraid." And gently, firmly Louis pressed Claudia's hand and kissed her cheek.

Claudia looked at Louis then with mingled wonder and fear.

"Louis, Madeleine needs comfort in death," I reminded him.

Madeleine began to cry.

Claudia watched Louis with that same expression as he wandered closer to Madeleine, drawn by her cries.

Madeleine reeled now, her hands out, and Louis caught her and held her close. Her eyes already burned with unnatural light.

I went to Madeleine as well and whispered to her, "You are dyeing."

A violet fire reflected in her tears as she began to cry again.

"It's mortal death, only mortal death," Louis said to her gently.

"We are loosing her," I whispered to Louis softly, "Give her something to look at, to concentrate on; otherwise she's going to give up."

"Do you see the sky," Louis asked her.

Madeleine opened her eyes, allowing more tears to spur from her eyes.

"Tell her what to do," I whispered to Louis, seeing how lost Madeleine was.

"We must leave it now," Louis instructed her, "And you must hold tight to me, lie by my side. A sleep as heavy as death will come over my limbs, and I wont be able to solace you. And you will lie there and you will struggle with it. But you hold on to me in the darkness, do you hear?"

I took one of Madeleine's hands.

"You hold tight to my hands," Louis instructed her as he took the other one in both his own, "which will hold your hands as long as I have feeling." He looked at me for a second, "Don't let her hand go," he instructed me.

I nodded in response as he turned back to Madeleine.

Madeleine seemed lost for the moment in Luis's gaze. I saw radiant colors reflected in her eyes.

"Louis," I whispered softly, "We should take her to the coffin." I looked to the coffin in the other room, "Who knows how long it will take her to die, to be able to let go and relax enough to let herself die."

Louis guided her gently to the coffin, telling her again not to be afraid.

"Tell her what will happen once she dies, so she's not afraid of what will happen to her," I suggested as I followed them to the coffin.

"When you arise, you will be immortal," Louis said.

"You won't ever be able to be harmed again," I whispered to her gently.

"No natural cause of death can harm you. Come, lie down."

I could see hr fear of it, see her shrink from the narrow box, its satin no comfort. Already her skin began to glisten, to have that brilliance that Claudia and I shared. "Go in the coffin with her, she's too afraid to lie in there by herself," I whispered to Louis.

Louis held her and looked across the long vista of the room to where Claudia now stood, with that strange coffin, watching him.

Claudia's eyes were still but ark with an undefined suspicion, a cool distrust.

"Put Madeleine, I can take care of her," I told Louis, noticing how he looked at Claudia.

Louis set Madeleine down beside her bed.

"Go to Claudia, she is frightened as well," I whispered to Louis, seeing the look on Claudia's face as she watched Madeleine with Louis as if they were strangers, dyeing in each others arms.

Louis moved towards Claudia's eyes. And, kneeling calmly beside her, he gathered Claudia in his arms. "Don't you recognize me," he asked her.

Claudia did not reply, but put her arms around Louis and buried her face in his shoulder.

"Don't you now who I am," Louis asked her.

Claudia looked at him, "No," she said, "I bear ill will towards Louis, but I bear no ill will to you."

Louis smiled.

"She bears you no ill will any more," I witnessed.

He nodded. "Bear me no ill will," he said, "We are even."

Claudia moved her head to one side and studied Louis carefully.

"Why should one big happy family bear each other ill will," I joked with a light laugh and a smile.

Claudia then seemed to smile despite herself.

"Are you and Louis going to fight less now," I asked softly.

Claudia nodded in assent.

"For you see," Louis said to her in that same calm voice, "What died tonight in this room was not that woman."

"No, it's going to take Madeleine a while before she dose," I agreed.

"It will take her many nights to die, perhaps years," Louis said to her.

"Then, what died tonight," Claudia asked.

"What died in this room tonight is the last vestige in me of what was human," Louis said to her in that same calm voice.

A shadow fell over her face; clear, as if the composure were rent like a veil. And her lips parted, but only with a short intake of breath.

"Claudia," I said softly. She seemed to be almost in shock.

Then she said, "Well, then you are right."

"Right about what," I asked her softly.

"Indeed. We are even," she said softly.


	52. Chapter 52

The next night we took a visit to Madeleine's doll shop. Claudia and I were both allowed to choose a doll. Madeleine wandered around the doll shop, looking at everything with new found eyes. She almost looked afraid.

"Madeleine, what's wrong," I asked her softly.

"The dolls almost look as if they are alive. I can see their eyes following me everywhere…'Madeleine whispered softly. She reached out and broke a doll. Then another and another until all but three dolls remained in the shop. She would soon continue this trend, only with humans as her victims. That night Louis taught her how to feed. He taught her how to select which human to kill. Although she hardly listened. For the next week she simply went around killing men that were handsome. She made the kill very passionate, lifting her victims off their feet in her passion, stroking their throats right before they died in a way that sent shivers down her victims' spine in pleasure before they died. The week after that she went simply after women whom she had wished to kill when she was a human. She killed all of the women that were remaining in her family, saying that they looked too like her daughter and went on about how she wished to forget about her daughter so she must kill them. She would crush their throats with her ivory fingers as surely as she drunk their blood. So certain was I that sooner rather than later this mad intensity must abate if she were ever to take hold of this nightmare that she lived every day of her mortal life. The nightmare of losing someone you love. The nightmare of losing your own daughter. She had never really gotten over it. This was why she became a doll maker. She would forever bring joy to the little girls who were living, but never to her daughter ever again. She could make doll after doll but she could never make another daughter ever again. She could never be replaced. She could never be brought back to life. She could never be brought back into her life. For centuries she had been grieving for the loss of this daughter. Now it almost seemed to be driving her mad. She decided the next night that she had to burn all of her daughter's belongings so that she could forget about her. So we gathered up all of her dresses.

I stole one away for myself and hid it from her. It was a beautiful dress that was made out of white lace. It was slightly crinkled from not being hung properly. It smelled of camphor.

Madeleine, Claudia and Louis gathered up all of the other dresses and bought them to the Hotel Saint Gabriel with us. I grabbed the last two dresses lingering in the chest. I grabbed a beige dress and a dress made out of linen.

Once we got back to the flat, Madeleine fed all of her daughter's dresses, except the one that I stole for myself, into the fire. She was feeding to the fire in the grate the folded dresses of that dead daughter, white lace and beige linen.

The next night she and I returned for all of her daughters shoes. They were all crinkled and smelled of sachet. She burned them all that night.

After that we went after all of her hats. We grabbed up all of the bonnets and we brought them back to the flat and burned them as well.

Then we continued with her child furniture. She had a child sized rocking chair, book shelves, a child sized table, and a child's bed. We burned them all in the fire. The fire was better fueled by these than the other objects because they were made out of wood.

Next came all of her daughter's dolls. She had nine of them. We burned all but one. I saved one that looked almost like Claudia. She had curly blonde hair. She was beautiful. I hid her along with the dress that I had hidden nights ago.

After that came the rest of her daughter's toys. She had nine other toys. She had a stuffed bear, a tiny oil lamp, and nine other toys made out of wood. Yet again I saved the teddy bear for myself and allowed Madeleine to burn the rest of the toys. She had made all of the toys herself.

Then we continued with all of the china cups in the house that she had ever drunk from. We threw them upon the floor of the flat, breaking them all. These things we did not need to burn.

The next night we came back for all of the saucers that went with the cups and broke them by throwing them across the room as if they were Frisbees. They shattered against the opposite wall.

Finally we took all of her purses from the house. I saved two of these this time. I saved leather one and one that was made out of midnight colored velvet. I stashed them and then we burned the rest of them.

After this Madeleine went back to the house alone. She set her daughters toy clock on fire within the house and allowed the rest of the house and all of her daughter's and her things in them to burn. "It means nothing now, any of it," she said as she stood back watching the fire blaze. And she looked at Claudia with triumphant fierce devoted eyes.

Claudia looked back at her and then took her hand. She led her to a man so that they may feed for the night.

After this was all done, Madeleine fell into her old doll maker's craft of making her old lover over and over the replica of her dad child. She made fourteen dolls one night. Claudia and I each received one. The next night we visited her shop. We put all of the new dolls onto the shelves and cleaned up the broken ones. Madeleine picked up her chisel and knife from the shop. On the way home she collected a few sticks of wood. The next night she made a perfect rocking chair, so shaped and proportioned for Claudia that seated in it by the fire, she appeared a woman.

Claudia rocked in that chair for hours upon end in front of the fire while Madeleine made her more things. The next night she made her a table of the same scale. The next night she and Claudia went shopping for things to put upon the table. It looked to plain and naked. They came home with a tiny oil lamp, a china cup and saucer, a white purse and leather bound book. Claudia read the book in one night.

After this Madeleine and Claudia got a craving not only for blood every night but to go shopping as well. One night they brought home some small mirrors that were only high enough to reflect Louis's legs. Then for the next two nights they bought famous paintings for each room in the house. They hung them up low so that Claudia and I could look at them. Then the next night Madeleine made Claudia a beautiful little vanity table. We filled it with all of our gloves. After this Claudia got the craving to go shopping for clothes. Some clothes she bought while others she ripped off of her victims to fit either her or Madeleine. They got themselves many new dresses. Claudia's favorite became a woman's low-cut gown of midnight velvet. To continue looking so good Claudia also shopped for accessories. She got a tiara from a child's masked ball.

So naturally one night we ventured into a masquerade ball. We fed upon women drunk upon champagne that had just left their husbands and taken their wealth with them. We each wore beautiful masks except for Claudia. She wore her woman's dress with matching gloves and her beautiful tiara. I myself got a dress decorated with peacock feathers. To match I wore a mask made out of feathers. There was a peacock feather coming out of the top of it. Louis and I danced all night while Madeleine and Claudia danced like fairy queens.

By the end of the month Claudia had become Madeleine's crowning jewel. She was a fairy queen with bare white shoulders wandering with her sleek tresses among the rick items of her tiny world while Louis watched from the doorway. How beautiful she was in black lace, a cold flaxen-haired woman with a kewpie doll's face and liquid eyes which gazed at Louis so serenely. She seemed to catch his gaze and keep it so much better than I myself could. Louis would lie on the floor and stare at her and Madeleine for hours.

Louis put his hands under his head and gazed at the chandelier.

Madeleine was on the couch, working with that regular passion, as if immortality could not conceivably mean rest, sewing cream lace to lavender satin for the small bed, only stopping occasionally to blot the moisture tingled with blood from her white forehead. She had promised me that she would make me a bed tomorrow night.

I went and lay down next to Louis. I cuddled up to him. "Claudia reminds me of Cinderella," I commented softly, a little jealous still but trying not to show it through my words. "She could come out a house where garden mice would be monsters, rather than horses. She's more of a gothic Cinderella."

Louis nodded. I could tell he was thinking about something else.

"You know, you are not bound here," I mind-spoke to Louis gently, "You can get up whenever you want to."

'But I am bound hand and feet here," Louis mind-spoke back softly.

"By who," I asked.

"By that fairy beauty, that exquisite secret of Claudia's white shoulders," Louis mind spoke back to me.

I looked over at Claudia. She was putting on pearls. She then sprayed a bit of perfume upon herself. Now a decanter, from which a spell is, released that promises Eden.

"Claudia would not bind you here," I mind spoke to Louis gently, "What is really binding you here?"

I saw it on Louis's face before he admitted, "I am bounded by fear."

"Fear of what," I asked, "You don't have to fear anything inside this room."

"Fear that outside these rooms, where I preside over the education of Madeleine- erratic conversations about killing and vampire nature in which Claudia could have instructed so much more easily than I, if she had ever showed the desire to take the lead- that outside the room, where nightly I am reassured with soft kisses and contented looks that the hateful passion which Claudia has once shown could return."

"Things have changed. I don't think Claudia is going to be mad at you any time soon." I reminded him, "You have changed."

He looked over at me. Our eyes locked as I continued to comment.

"I've just noticed it since you turned Madeleine, you have changed," I admitted, "According to my own hasty admission, you have truly changed. The mortal part of you has changed. Also since Europe you seem to have become slightly more evil." It was silent for a few moments. So I decided to change the subject. "We have not seen Armand for a month or so now." I saw Armand in his monkish cell; saw his dark-brown eyes. So the clock ticked on the mantel. We did not move to go to Armand.

During the next few nights I began to learn about some of the truths of loneliness. I realized that in Europe I'd found no truths to lessen loneliness. Rather, I'd found only the inner workings of my own small soul. I was glad that Claudia was no longer in pain. She still had a huge passion for a vampire who was perhaps more evil than Lestat.

"I want to burn the doll shop," Madeleine told us one night.

I did not believe her, so certain I was- even though night after night Louis had to lead her away from men. I also had to lead her away from other women she could no longer drain dry. So satiated was she with the blood of earlier kills, often lifting her victims off their feet in her passion. So certain I was that sooner or later this made intensity must abate, and she would take hold of the trappings of this nightmare, her own luminescent flesh.

Madeleine smiled at herself in the mirror, showing her fledgling teeth to the gilt-edged mirrors. She was mad.

Louis did not realize how mad she was. I did not realize how accustomed to dreaming; and that she would not cry out for reality.

"Why do you want to burn the doll shop," I asked her.

"So that I can take almost all of the wood from the shop to make Claudia more things," Madeleine reasoned, "I need more wood."

"If there is no wood then what would fuel the fire," I asked, almost trying to see her mad reasoning behind it all.

"The doll buttons," she shrugged," the dolls clothes. The dolls themselves…"

Now I could see why she wanted to burn down the doll shop. It wasn't for the wood. "You want to burn down the doll shop because you want to burn the dolls," I announced.

Madeleine turned to me with blood tears in her eyes. "They all look like her," she whispered softly, "they all remind me of her. They have the same hair, the same face, the same eyes…" It was silent for a moment while Madeleine cried softly. She blot the blood tears from her cheeks. "I want to forget," she sighed softly. "It's just like all of her clothes… the doll shop means nothing now. Nothing in it means anything at all."

I nodded to her. "Ok, we will burn down the doll shop," I reasoned with her.

It was a week before we accompanied Madeleine on her errand, to torch a universe of dolls behind a plate-glass window. We walked up the street away from it, round a turn into a narrow cavern of darkness where the falling rain was the only sound. Louis saw the red glare against the clouds first.

Then I saw it. Bells clanged and men shouted. Claudia beside Louis was talking softly of the nature of fire. The thick smoke rising in that flickering glares unnerved Louis. I was slightly afraid of it. After all, it is the only thing that could kill us other than the sun. It was merely a mortal fear for me. It reminded me of the old town house burning in the Rue royale. I thought of Lestat and the last time that I had seen him. A few tears began to form in my eyes. I began to wonder if Lestat really was all right like he had promised he would be. Little did I know that I was soon to find out.

I was pulled back into reality of Claudia's words, "fire purifies."

"No," Louis replied, "fire merely destroys."

Madeleine had gone past us and was roaming at the top of the street, a phantom in the rain, her white hands whipping the air, beckoning me, white arcs of white fireflies. I went to Madeleine. So did Claudia. We had some shopping to do. Louis needed some new buttons for his shirt and Claudia and I needed some new buttons for our new black evening gloves.

I saw Armand pass us a few moments later. The black ribbon in Claudia's hair slid out of her curls, the rain making her hair so slippery. I beckoned the girls to come with me so that Armand and Louis could be alone.


	53. Chapter 53

After being in the button shop with Madeleine and Claudia for a little less than what seemed like an hour I left them to find Louis and Armand.

I wanted desperately to talk to him. There was so much I wanted to tell him. And yet I didn't know what to say. I didn't know where they were now, only that in my wanderings I'd passed here before, a street of ancient mansions. I found them sitting atop a garden wall. I wasn't sure what frightened me more, the climb itself or the notion of being seen as a ghost.

Armand and Louis were atop the wall now. Armand's arm was against the overhanging bough of a tree. His hand reached for me. In an instant I stood beside him, the wet foliage brushing my face. Above, I could see story after story rising to a lone tower that barely emerged from the dark rain.

"We were just about to climb the tower," Armand said with a smile, "Glad you could join us.

"I cannot," Louis gasped.

"Why not," I questioned him.

"It's impossible," he sighed.

I laughed lightly, softly. "Nothing is impossible for us," I reminded him, "especially with our powers. We are not mere humans anymore. We can do it."

"You don't begin to know your own powers. You can climb easily." Armand reminded us.

"What if we fall," I question.

"Remember if you fall you will not be injured," Armand reminded us.

We were all silent for a moment. Then I asked, "What do we do so that we are not spotted by the humans in the house," I asked cautiously.

"Do as I do. But note this. The inhabitants of this house have known me for a hundred years and think of a spirit, so if by chance they see you, or you see them through those windows, remember what they believe you to be and show no consciousness of them lest you disappoint them or confuse them. Do you hear?"

'Yes," I said, "But are we safe doing this. Letting humans see us, even if they do think that we are something else?"

"You are perfectly safe," Armand reassured us.

I had no time for comforting witticisms, even to myself. Armand had begun, his boots finding the crack between the stones.

I inserted my right boot into a crack and began to climb as well, my hands sure as claws in the crevices; and Louis was moving after me, tight to the wall.

I took a moment to look down at Louis and clung for a moment to rest on a thick arch over a window.

Louis caught up with me very quickly. He glimpsed inside the house for a second and then continued to climb.

I looked inside the window and saw a licking fire. There was a person inside the house, but he had just left the room to get more fire wood for the night. I knew we had to hurry up to the tower before he came outside and saw us climbing up his wall, gone. Higher and higher we climbed, until we reached the window of the tower itself, which Armand had already wrenched open. Louis rose up after him.

I sighed as I reached the window and Armand wrapped his arm out around my shoulders to help me through the window.

Louis stood in the room, rubbing the backs of his arms, looking around the wet strange place. The rooftops were silver below, treetops rising here and there through the huge, rustling treetops; and far off glimmered the broken chain of a lighted boulevard where Claudia and Madeleine were shopping. The room seemed as damp as the night outside.

"It's cold in here," I commented, seeing Louis rubbing his arms, "can we make a fire?"

Armand nodded. From a molding pile of furniture he was picking chairs, breaking them into wood easily despite the thickness of their rungs. There was something grotesque about him. He did what any vampire could do, cracking these thick pieces of wood into splinters, yet he did what only a vampire could do. And there seemed nothing human about him, yet drew me to him and his handsome features

I grabbed a table from the pile of furniture and began breaking it into wood as well. He stopped me once we only had two oak chairs left. I was not surprised that, when he finished, he set a heavy oak chair down for Louis and me but retired himself to the marble mantelpiece and sat there warming his hands over the fire, the flames throwing red shadows into his face.

I sat the chair dangerously close to the fire and began to warm my own hands as well. I could hear the inhabitants of the house. The warmth was good. I could feel the leather of my boots drying.

"I can hear the inhabitants of the house," Louis said to Armand. Louis put his feet close to the fire so that they could dry as well.

"I can hear them as well," I echoed.

"Then you know that I can hear them," Armand said softly; and though this didn't contain a hint of a reproach, I read the implications of his words.

"And if they come," Louis insisted. He had begun to study Armand's dark hair.

"Will they come," I questioned Armand.

"Can't you tell by my manner that they won't come," Armand asked.

"What shall we speak of tonight then," I questioned softly.

"We could sit here all night and never speak of them. I want you to know that if we speak of them it is because you want to do so. They have long ago sealed off this tower," Armand said gently.

Louis said nothing and looked a little defeated. As Armand spoke more to Louis about how the tower was left and how he found it, I could see that there were several shelves of books at one side of the fireplace. So I ventured over and began to look at them. I took out a book about ghost stories and began to read it. "No wonder none of the inhabitants of this house will come up here in the night," I mused to myself as I read the tales, "They would be too scared out of their wits." I continued to look around the room. There was everything we would ever need in this tower. "We could live here if we wanted to," I commented softly to myself.

"You see," Armand said, "you really have no need of the rooms you have at the hotel."

"What do we need," I questioned curiously. I myself felt that I needed everything that I owned within the hotel.

"You really have need of very little," Armand explained, "but each f us must decide how much he or she wants."

"You spoke of the people in this house before," I questioned, "And they just think you are a spirit?"

"These people in this house have a name for me, encounters with me cause talk for twenty years," Armand laughed.

"Yet these humans mean nothing to you," I questioned curiously.

"They are only isolated instants in my time which mean nothing," Armand shrugged.

"They can't hurt you," I questioned softly.

"They cannot hurt me, and I use their house to be alone," Armand shrugged.

"How could you be alone if you have a whole coven at the theatre," I questioned.

"No one of the theatres des Vampires knows of my coming here," Armand shrugged again.

"So it's our secret," I questioned.

"This is my secret," Armand nodded.

Louis watched him intently as he was speaking. It looked like he was thinking. After all, not all vampires age.

I lost myself in thoughts about how his youthful face might differ now from what he had been more than a century before. His face was powerfully expressive. I was as powerfully drawn to him as before.

'"If you keep secrets from the theatres des Vampires, then why do you go back to them," I questioned curiously.

"But what holds you to the Theatres des Vampires," Louis asked.

"A need," Armand replied with a shrug," Naturally. But I've found what I need. Why do you shun me?"

Louis looked at Armand and met his gaze. They stared at each other for a few minutes. I could hear Louis's heart beat speeding up slightly. Was he excited? About what?

"I never shunned you," Louis said, trying to hide the excitement that Armand had spoken to him had produced.

"Then why do you spend so much time with Claudia and not with Armand," I questioned curiously, although I was almost guilty of doing the same thing within these past few months.

"You understand I have to protect Claudia, that she has no one but me. Or at least she had no one until…"

"Until you turned Madeleine," I confirmed.

"Until Madeleine came to live with you," Armand questioned.

"Yes," Louis said.

'Now that Claudia has Madeleine though, she has released you," I commented softly.

"But now Claudia has released you, yet still you stay with her," Armand questioned.

"You stay with her as if you are bund with her," I confirmed.

"Bound to her as your paramour," Armand finished.

"Is Claudia a paramour," I questioned.

"No," Louis confirmed.

"She's not a paramour," I asked again.

"She's no paramour of mine; you don't understand," Louis said, "Remember, she's my child."

"But I am your child and you have already released me much more than you have released Claudia," I objected.

Louis interrupted me "It's not that I have released you. I have not released you from my mind and my thoughts. I just don't know that she can release me just yet."

"Why not," I questioned him, "why has she not released you?"

"I don't know if the child possesses the power to release the parent," Louis admitted.

"When do you think she will possess that power," I questioned curiously. I began to think about my own relationship with Louis. Have I released him yet? Has he released me? "Are you going to be bound to her forever?"

"I don't know that I won't be bound to her for as long as she…" Louis began. Louis stopped. It was silent for a few minutes.

"You mean as long as she lives," I questioned, "That's rather hollow words. After all, she's not living anymore. She is going to live forever as I will live forever and as you will live forever. Daughters live forever because their fathers die first."

Louis was at a loss suddenly.

Armand all the while listened, and he listened in the way that we dream of others listening, his face seeming to reflect on everything said. He did not start forward to seize on Louis's slight pause.

I did not assert an understanding of anything before any thought was finished, the things which often make dialogue impossible.

And after a long interval he said, "I want you," to Louis.

"What did you say," I questioned as I looked over at him. I could not believe my ears. He wanted Louis? My Louis? I was jealous that he did not want me but at the same time, I knew that I wanted Louis too. I was afraid that he would want Armand instead of me. I loved Armand and wanted him as much as I wanted Louis, and I could never choose between them. But could Louis choose between me and Armand? I wanted him more than anything in the universe.

"I want you more than anything in the world," Armand repeated to Louis.

For a moment I doubted what I'd heart. It struck me as unbelievable. And I was disarmed by it. "Say that one more time," I requested.

"I said that I want you," Armand repeated, with only a subtle change of expression.

"More than anything," I asked.

"I want you more than anything in the world," Armand repeated with a little bit more change of expression. And then he sat, waiting. He watched Louis, his face as tranquil as always, his smooth, white forehead beneath the shock of his auburn hair without a trace of care, his large eyes reflecting on Louis, his lips still.

"What do you want," I asked Louis softly.

"I simply want to know things," Louis shrugged.

"You want this of me, yet you don't come to me," Armand said, "These are things you want to know, and you don't ask."

"Is this because of Claudia," I questioned.

"You see Claudia slipping away from you," Armand commented.

"Claudia slipping away is within our power, isn't it," I asked, wondering if there was anything that I could do to keep Claudia from slipping away from me.

"You seem powerless to prevent it, and then you would hasten it, and yet you do nothing," Armand spoke to Louis. He looked at me, "It is within your power. But you must take hold of your own emotions before you can have that power."

"I don't understand my own feelings," Louis admitted.

I looked at Louis. I could clearly see the emotions on his face. His face has always been so expressive that I could read it almost like a book. There was love and yet sorrow and worry on his face. I could tell he was thinking about Claudia. What Armand had said made him think about how Claudia is slipping away from him.

"Perhaps they are clearer to you than they are to me," Louis sighed.

"You don't begin to know what a mystery you are," Armand exclaimed.

"But do you know your own self," I asked Louis.

"I can't claim that. But at least you know yourself thoroughly," He sighed to Armand.

"Do you know the people that you love," I asked, "do you know me? Do you know Armand? Do you know Claudia?"

"I love her," Louis cried.

"But are you close to her," I asked. Because it seemed like they were slipping farther and farther away.

"I am not close to her," Louis sighed.

"What do you mean by that," I asked Louis, "is it different when we are here with Armand than when we are with Claudia herself?"

"I mean that when I am with Armand as I am now, I know that I know nothing of her," Louis gasped.

"Do you know anything," I asked.

"I know nothing of her, nothing of anyone," Louis admitted.

"But she's not nothing," I acknowledged, "She must be something to you."

"She's an era for you," Armand confirmed.

"You mean she's just a small part of our lives," I asked. She seemed to be so much more to me.

"She's an era of your life," Armand confirmed, "If and when you break with her, you break with the only one alive who has shared that time with you."

"But what if we don't want that to happen," I questioned, "What if I never want to break with Louis? What if I want to spend more than one part of my life with him?" I ran to Louis and leapt into his lap. I hugged him tightly. I was afraid of losing Louis. I never wanted to lose him. I was afraid of being alone.

"Your fear that, the isolation of it, the burden, the scope of eternal life," Armand sighed.

Louis hugged me to him. "Yes, that's true." He admitted, "But that's only a small part of it."

"Does the Era mean anything to us," I questioned, "An era is merely a compilation of events and experiences."

"The era, it doesn't mean much to me," Louis admitted.

"Why not," I questioned. We were all silent for a while. Finally I admitted, "It has meant something to me. It means so much to me because of the people who have been with me during this era of my immortal life."

"She made it mean something," Louis nodded in agreement.

"I'm sure Claudia would say the same thing about us," I guessed with a shrug.

"Other vampires must experience this and survive it, the passing of a hundred eras," Louis gasped softly.

"But they don't survive it," Armand said.

"Why not," I questioned, "How do you know this?"

"The world would be choked with vampires if they survived it,"Armand stated, "How you think I come to be the eldest here or anywhere," Armand asked.

I thought about this. Then Louis spoke.

"They die by violence," he ventured.

"No, almost never; it isn't necessary," Armand shook his head.

"They die as the times die, as things change. As new things are invented and new ways are invented into the world," I guessed.

"Exactly," He said. He smiled at me. "How many vampires do you think have the stamina for immortality," He asked.

"Maybe one out of three vampires," I guessed with a shrug. "There must be a reason for this though."

"It's because they have the most dismal notions of immortality to begin with," Armand admitted.

"They think that all forms of their lives will be fixed in time, just like they are," I sighed softly.

"For in becoming immortal they want all the forms of their life to be fixed as they are and incorruptible: carriages made in the same dependable fashion," Armand explained.

"I'm sure they don't expect their clothes to change either," I laughed softly.

"Clothing of the cut which suited their prime," Armand nodded.

"I'm sure the male vampires also expect to be able to wear the same clothes they did when they were alive," I laughed out loud, "They don't expect the way they live to change at all. Men are such stubborn creatures to begin with!"

"Men attired and speaking in the manner they have always understood and valued, "Armand continued, "When, in fact, all things change except the vampire himself."

"Everything," I asked. I thought of how many things around me have changed. But did not want everything to change by the time this era was almost over. I did not want my relationship with Louis or Claudia to ever change.

"Everything except the vampire is subject to constant corruption," Armand said.

"But aren't we subject to other things other than corruption," I asked in hope.

"And distortion," Armand shrugged.

"What else happens to your mind during this time," I asked. I was curious what I was getting myself into.

"Soon, with an inflexible mind, and often even with the most flexible mind, this immortality becomes a penitential sentence in a madhouse of figures and forms that are hopelessly unintelligible and without value," Armand sighed softly.

"Then what happens," I asked curiously.

"One evening a vampire rises and realizes what he has feared perhaps for decades," Armand said.

"And what would that be," I asked.

"That he simply wants no more of life at any cost," Armand replied.

"What about the things that we vampires could gain from immortality," I asked, "They must make them want to live at least one more night."

"Whatever style or fashion or shape of existence made immortality attractive to him has been swept off the face of the earth," Armand sighed.

"What about the freedom of it all," I asked, "that surely must have its appeal."

"And nothing remains to offer freedom from despair except the act of killing. And that vampire goes out to die," Armand muttered softly.

"If he dies what will happen to his remains," I asked softly, "won't someone find them?"

"No one will find his remains," Armand replied with a shrug.

"Wont his companions wonder where he is," I asked, thinking about what would happen if I myself or if Claudia or Louis were to go missing.

"No one will know where he has gone," Armand shook his head.

"But if his companions see that he is not handling the new fashions well, then wont they suspect where he has gone," I asked almost in disbelief.

"Often no one around him- should he seek the company of other vampires- no one will know that he is in despair."

"But the way he speaks would give it away, wouldn't it," I asked. I was slowly beginning to believe that possibly Armand was speaking not just from knowledge, but from personal experiences. Maybe he has felt this way at some point in his eras.

"He will have ceased long ago to speak of himself or of anything. He will vanish," Armand sighed.

Louis sat back. It was silent for a few moments.

I sat there watching Armand. I was thinking to myself about all the truths he had just revealed to us. I wondered if Armand's mind had ever thought any of those things. "Could you slip into that state of mind," I asked Armand finally.

"But you wouldn't allow such a state of mind in yourself," Louis found himself answering.

"Why wouldn't I," Armand asked Louis.

"Look at you," Louis gasped, "if there weren't one single work of art left in this world…."

"You yourself look like a work of art," I admitted to Armand with a slight blush, "Then again there are many different forms of art in this world."

"There are thousands," Louis gasped.

"There are many natural beauties within art," I confessed.

"If the world were reduced to one empty cell and but see you studying that candle, absorbed one fragile candle, I can't help in the flicker of its light, the change of its colors…" Louis admitted.

"Would that sustain you," I asked Armand. I did not think that a mere candle could sustain me for more than one night.

"How long could that sustain you," Louis asked.

"Is it even possible that a single candle could sustain you," I asked Armand.

"What possibilities would it create," Louis asked.

"Is Louis right," I asked Armand, "Are there even possibilities within one single candle?"

"Am I wrong," Louis asked.

"Louis, you are beginning to get a little crazed," I whispered softly, "we should allow Armand to answer before we ask him any more questions."

"Am I such a crazed idealist," Louis laughed.

"You are not a crazed idealist," I told Louis as I hugged him.

"No," Armand finally answered. There was a brief smile on his lips, an evanescent flush of pleasure. But then he went on simply, "But you feel an obligation to a world you live in because that world for you is still intact."

"Will it always be intact for us," I asked softly. I was beginning to almost fear the inevitable madness that will surely eventually ensure for me.

"It is conceivable your own sensitivity might become the instrument of madness," Armand sighed softly.

"I am only sensitive to some types of art," I objected, "I do not think that I am quite as sensitive as Louis." I looked back up at him and nestled a little closer to his chest.

"You speak of words of art and natural beauty. I wish I had the artist's power to bring alive for you the Venice of the fifteenth century, my master's palace there, the love I felt for him when I was a mortal boy, and the love he felt for me when he made me a vampire. Oh, if I could make those times come alive for either you or me," Armand trailed off.

Armand looked so sad. I slid out of Louis's lap and went over to Armand. I put my hand on his knee. "You wish that you could go back to those times," I said to Armand.

He looked down at me into my eyes and I saw very small blood tears developing into his eyes. "For only an instant!" he insisted.

"I'm sure that would mean the world to you," I said as I hugged his leg.

He smiled at me. "What would that be worth," he sighed, "and such a sadness it is to me that time doesn't dim the memory of that period."

"Why is it sad," I questioned him, "Don't you have any good memories of that period?"

"It becomes all the richer and more magical in light of the world I see today," Armand sighed.

"But don't you love those memories," I questioned.

"Love," Louis asked.

"There was love between Lestat and me as well as with Louis and me," I confessed softly. Then I asked softly, "Was there any love between you and the vampire who made you?"

"Yes," Armand admitted.

"There was love between you and the vampire who made you," Louis asked as he leaned forward.

"Was it a strong love," I questioned as I leaned on Louis.

"A love so strong he couldn't allow me to grow old and die, a love that waited patiently until I was strong enough to be born to darkness. Do you mean to tell me there was no bond of love between you and the vampire who made you," Armand admitted.

"None," Louis said quickly. He smiled a bit bitterly.

"He did too love you," I argued, "He loved me and he loved you and you know it." I saw that smile on his face.

"Why then did he give you these powers," Armand asked.

Louis sat back, 'you see these powers as a gift," he asked.

"They are the gift that Lestat gave to us," I argued.

"Of course you do," Louis laughed, "forgive me, but it amazes me, how in your complexity you are so profoundly simple." He laughed.

Armand looked at me and asked, "Should I be insulted?"

"No," I sighed softly, "Louis would never insult you."

Armand smiled at me. He seemed so innocent.

"Am I being insulted," Armand asked Louis.

"No, not by me," Louis said, his pulse quickening as he looked at Armand.

"What am I to you that you would never insult me," Armand asked.

"You are innocent," I confessed.

"You're everything I dreamed of when I became a vampire," Louis admitted.

"How so," Armand asked.

"You see these powers as a gift," Louis repeated.

"And you feel love for your makers and for us," I confessed.

"But tell me… do you now feel love for this vampire who gave you eternal life," Louis asked.

He appeared to be thinking then he said slowly, "Yes."

"Do you feel this now," Louis asked.

"Do you still love him," I asked.

"Why does this matter," He asked. But he went on before I could respond. "I don't think I've been fortunate in feeling love for many people or many things. But yes, I love him. Perhaps I do not love him as you mean. It seems you confuse me, rather effortlessly. You are a mystery. I do not need him, this vampire anymore."

"You love him because he gave you a gift," I guessed.

"I was gifted with eternal life, with heightened perception, and with the need to kill," Louis quickly explained, "because the vampire who made me wanted the house I owned and my money."

"He wanted more than that," I sighed, "He wanted you."

Louis shook his head to me. He looked at Armand and asked, "Do you understand such a thing?"

"I do not understand," Armand admitted, "I don't know everything behind your words."

"Ah, but there is so much else behind what I say," Louis admitted.

"I don't even think you know all that is behind those words," I confessed softly.

"It makes itself known to me so slowly, so incompletely," Louis admitted softly.

"It's like simply opening a door to something," I estimated.

"You see, it's as if you've cracked a door for me, and light is streaming from that door and I'm yearning to get to it, to push it back, to enter the region you say exists beyond it," Louis confessed.

"What is keeping you from touching that door," I questioned.

"In fact," Louis sighed, "I don't believe it."

"Why don't you believe it," I asked, "Is it because of Lestat?"

"The vampire who made me was everything that I truly believed evil to be," Louis confessed, " he was as dismal, as literal, as barren, as inevitably eternally disappointing as I believed evil had to be!"

"You didn't used to think that," I muttered.

"I know that now," Louis sighed.

"How does Lestat compare to Armand," I asked. "But you, you are something totally beyond that conception," Louis addressed Armand himself now, "Open the door for me, push it back all the way. Tell me about this palace, this love affair with damnation. I want to understand it."

"You trick yourself," Armand said.

"How so," I questioned.

"The palace means nothing to you," Armand confirmed.

"But what about the doorway," I questioned, "where does that doorway really lead to?"

"The doorway you see leads to me, now. To your coming to live with me, as I am," Armand said.

"And how are you now," I questioned, "Are you evil?"

"I am evil with infinite gradations and without guilt," Armand admitted.

"Yes, exactly," Louis murmured.

"I wouldn't be happy if we were to come with you," I confessed, "I would miss Claudia and Madeleine."

"And this makes you unhappy," Armand said, 'you, who came to me in my cell and said there was only one sin left, the willful taking of an innocent human life."

'Yes," Louis said, "How you must have been laughing at me…."

"He would never laugh at you," I said as I nuzzled Louis's leg.

"I never laughed at you," Louis said,

"Why not," Louis asked.

"I cannot afford to laugh at you," Armand admitted.

"What do you mean," I asked.

"It is through you that I can save myself from the despair which I've described to you as our death. It is through you that I must make my link with this nineteenth century and come to understand it in a way that will revitalize me, which I so desperately need. It is for you that I've been waiting at the Theatre des Vampires. If I know a mortal of that sensitivity, that pain, that focus, I would make him a vampire in an instant. But such can rarely be done. No, I've had to wait and watch for you. And now I'll fight for you. Do you see how ruthless I am in love? Is this what you meant by love," he asked.

"Oh, but you'd be making a terrible mistake," Louis said, looking Armand in the eyes.

Armand's words were slowly sinking in. I could see Louis becoming frustrated. "What mistake is he making," I asked. I looked up at Louis. "Everything he said is true. You are helping us link with this age."

"No. I must make contact with the age," Armand said to him calmly.

"And he needs us in order to do this," I confirmed.

"And I can do this through you," Armand confessed.

"You could learn things through art," I estimated.

"Not to learn things from you which I can see in a moment in an art gallery or read in an hour in the thickest books," Armand added.

"But I bet you could learn a lot from a single page of a thick book," I pointed out.

"You are the spirit, you are the heart," he persisted.

"No," Louis threw up his hands. He gave out a slight hysterical laugh.

"What are you seeing that we don't," I asked.

'No," Louis said, "Don't you see? I'm not the spirit of any age."

"Why can't you be," I asked.

"I'm at odds with everything," Louis argued.

"Since when," I asked. He always seemed more in touch with the age than this.

"I always have been," Louis admitted.

"Even when you are with me," I asked.

"I have never belonged anywhere with anyone at any time," Louis said painfully.

Armand's face brightened with an irresistible smile. He laughed a little, and then his shoulders began to move with laughter for a second. "But Louis," He said softly, "This is the very spirit of your age. Don't you see that?"

"I feel the same way that you do sometimes," I admitted with a shrug, "This past age I have felt so out of touch."

"Everyone else feels as you feel," Armand confirmed.

"You are merely falling from grace," I shrugged.

"Your fall from grace and faith has been the fall of a century," Armand confirmed.

Louis was so stunned. He sat there staring into the fire. It had all but consumed the wood and was a wasteland of smoldering ash, a gray and red landscape that would have collapsed at the touch of the poker.

I inserted a poker and poked it a few times to keep the fire going. The wood was almost gone. "I'm going to go get some more fire wood," I volunteered. As I left I heard Louis say the word 'and.'


	54. Chapter 54

My shoes found the cracks between the stones of the tower as I climbed down. Before I knew it I had reached a balcony of the ancient mansion below our tower. I slipped onto the balcony. The humans who lived there were sound asleep. I slipped into the house to try and find some fire wood. There was no fire wood in the house. So I looked at the furniture instead. I found a chair that had not been used in years. It was within a corner in the room. The legs were almost molding. So I took this chair out onto the balcony. I broke it into pieces that could be used as fire wood. I broke it into wood easily despite the thickness of the rungs.

With that I took the wood up to the tower piece by piece. I climbed up, putting my feet upon the stones of the tower. When I arrived with the wood I heard Louis and Armand talking. I tossed the piece of wood I had gathered into the fire. I still had more wood to collect and bring up, so I left them to get another piece of wood from the pile. I heard Louis say the words "you see" to Armand. But that was all I heard. I climbed down the tower, my hands sure as claws in the crevices. I continued to gather wood. I grabbed two more pieces and began to climb back up. My boots were sure as claws. Armand and Louis were still talking. Louis was still talking. "I broke a…" he said before I began to climb back down to get more wood. My hands were finding the cracks between the stones. This time I grabbed three pieces of wood and began to climb back up. My hands began to climb the stones. Louis was still talking to Armand. "I broke a grave…" Louis said. I went to the last pieces of wood. My boots finding the crevices in the stones, I climbed back down for the last time. I grabbed the rest of the wood and started to climb back up. I clung to the tower as I climbed. I also clung tightly to the pieces of wood in my arms. I arrived at the tower in time to hear Louis say, "And in so doing…"

"But if it's any consolation to you… surely you realize I had a hand in it," Armand told Louis.

"That I did it to be free of Claudia, to be free to come to you…"

"Is that why you made Madeleine," I asked as I threw another two pieces of wood into the fire.

'Yes," Louis admitted.


	55. Chapter 55

"You realized what you were doing an hour before you actually turned Madeleine," I estimated.

"I realize that," Louis admitted.

"You are being responsible for what you did," I acknowledged.

"But the ultimate responsibility lies with me," Louis said.

"No," Armand said, "I mean, directly. I made you do it!"

"How did you do that," I asked Armand as I sat down next to the fire to warm myself.

"I was near you the night you did it," Armand admitted.

"And what did you do from there," I asked.

"I exerted my strongest power to persuade you to do it. Didn't you know this," Armand asked Louis.

"No," Louis admitted as he bowed his head.

"Would anyone else have made Madeleine a vampire at some point of Louis had not," I asked.

"I would have made this woman a vampire," Armand said softly.

"Why didn't you," I asked him.

"But I thought it best you have a hand in it," Armand admitted to Louis.

"Why should Louis have a hand in it," I asked, "Why not have someone from the Theatre do it?"

"Otherwise you would not give Claudia up," Armand admitted.

I looked at Louis. "Did you really want to turn Madeleine," I asked.

"You must know you wanted it," Armand answered for Louis.

"I loathe what I did," Louis said.

"Then you loathe me, not yourself," Armand confessed.

"No," Louis said.

"I don't understand," I confessed.

"You don't understand," Louis told Armand, "You nearly destroyed the thing you value in me when this happened!

"How did he destroy a part of you," I asked.

"I resisted you with all my power when I didn't even know it was your force which was working on me," Louis confessed, "Something nearly died in me! Passion nearly died in me!"

"Was that all that was destroyed that night," I asked.

"I was all but destroyed when Madeleine was created," Louis admitted.

"Is the passion in you still destroyed," I asked.

"But that thing is no longer dead, that passion, that humanity, whatever you wish to name it," Armand claimed.

Tears began to form in Louis's eyes.

"Louis, why are you crying," I asked softly as I climbed into his lap. I licked the blood tears from his right eye.

"If it were not alive there wouldn't be tears in your eyes now," Armand admitted.

"You must never force me to do something against my will" Louis requested. There was rage in his voice.

"There wouldn't be rage in your voice if the passion was nearly dead," Armand pointed out.

For the moment Louis couldn't answer. He only nodded. "You must never exert such power," Louis stammered.

"Please never do it ever again," I requested.

"No," Armand said at once, 'I must not. My power stops somewhere inside you, at some threshold. There I am powerless, however…. This creation of Madeleine is done."

"What does that mean for Louis," I asked Armand.

"You are free," Armand told Louis.

"Are you satisfied with this Armand," I asked him.

"And you are satisfied," Louis said, gaining a bit more control of himself.

"We do not mean to be harsh," I told Armand.

"I don't mean to be harsh," Louis admitted, "You have me."

I looked at Louis. "What do you mean by that," I asked him.

"I love you," Louis admitted to Armand.

"How can you tell that you are in love," I asked Louis. I almost didn't want to believe it. I found myself a little jealous. I crawled out of Louis's lap, feeling rejected.

"I'm mystified," Louis admitted.

"Are you satisfied with this," I asked Louis.

Louis looked to Armand. "You're satisfied," he asked him.

"How could I not be," Armand asked.

"But are you satisfied," I asked again.

"I am satisfied," Armand admitted.

I looked out the window. The light came from the gray sky. "The sun is going to come up soon," I commented softly.

"Of course," Armand said.

Louis stood up and went to the window. The last embers were dying. The light came from the gray sky.

Armand followed him to the window ledge. He stood beside Louis.

My eyes slowly began to become accustomed to the luminosity. I could see Armand's profile. He was looking out the window. I could hear the sound of falling rain. The sound of the rain was everywhere and different: flowing in the gutter along the roof, tapping the shingles, falling softly through the shimmering layers of tree branches, splattering on the sloped stone sill in front of Louis. A soft intermingling of sounds that drenched and colored all of the night. I went beside Louis.

"Do you forgive me," Armand asked Louis.

"Forgive you for what," I asked him.

"For forcing you with the woman," Armand asked.

"You don't need my forgiveness," Louis told Armand.

"If he doesn't need it then who does," I asked Armand.

"You need it," Armand told Louis.

"But so do you," I commented.

"Therefore, I need it," Armand agreed. His face was as always utterly calm.

"Will she care for Claudia," Louis asked.

"I think that she will take care of Claudia. But I don't know if she will be able to take care of herself as long as we have," I admitted.

"Will she endure," Louis asked.

"She is perfect," Armand commented.

"But she is mad," I commented.

"Mad; but for these days that is perfect," Armand admitted.

"Even in madness, will she care for Claudia," I asked.

"She will care for Claudia," Armand estimated.

"She will never be alone," I commented, glad that Claudia will never be alone even when I am apart from her as I was that moment.

"She has never lived a moment of life alone," Armand commented of Madeleine.

"Will she be devoted to Claudia," I asked.

"It is natural to her that she be devoted to her companions," Armand confirmed.

"But why does she love Claudia," I asked.

"She need not have particular reasons for loving Claudia," Armand shrugged.

"But she must have at least one reason," I insisted.

"In addition to her needs, she does have particular reasons," Armand confirmed.

"Claudia is so beautiful, how could she not love her," I commented, a little jealous of Claudia's beauty myself.

"Claudia's beautiful surface, Claudia's quiet, Claudia's dominance and control," Armand nodded, "They are prefect together."

"What do you think," I asked Armand.

"But Ii think…" Armand began.

"Where do you think they should go," I asked Armand.

"As soon as possible they should leave Paris," Armand noted.

"Why," Louis asked.

"You know why," Armand told Louis.

"We both know why," I confirmed, "it's because of Santiago."

"Because Santiago and the other vampires watch them with suspicion," Armand confirmed.

"They all know of Madeleine already," I admitted.

"All the vampires have seen Madeleine," Armand confirmed.

'I fear for her," I admitted. I knew that news would spread quickly to the theatre, but I did not know that any of them had actually seen her in person already. I feared Santiago the most.

"They fear her because she knows about them and they don't her," Armand admitted.

"How does Madeleine know of them," I asked, "How could she affect them?"

"They don't let others alone who know about them," Armand informed us.

"And the boy, Denis," Louis asked.

"What is going to happen to him," I asked.

"What do you plan to do with him," Louis asked.

"He's dead," Armand admitted.

I was astonished at his words.

"You killed him," Louis gasped.

He nodded. And said nothing. But his large, dark eyes seemed entranced with Louis, with the emotion, the shock he didn't try to conceal. His soft, subtle smile seemed to draw Louis close to him; his hand closed over Louis's on the wet window sill.

Louis turned to face him, drawing nearer to him.

"It was best," Armand conceded to Louis gently.

"We should go soon," I commented, looking at the sky.

"We must go now," Armand said as he glanced at the street below.

"Armand," Louis said.

"What is it, Louis," I asked him.

"I can't…" Louis admitted softly. He was afraid of climbing down.

"Louis, come after me," Armand whispered. And then he got on the ledge of the window. And then on the ledge, he stopped.

"What happens if we fall," I asked.

"Even if you were to fall on the cobblestones there," Armand said, "you would only be hurt for a while."

"How long is a while," I asked. I was nervous about climbing down as well.

"You would heal so rapidly and so perfectly that in days you would show no sign of it," Armand said.

"What about our bones," I asked, "could we break them?"

"Your bones healing as your skin heals," Armand told us.

"And this is supposed to make us feel better," I asked. Knowing this simply made me more scared. I had not been nervous about climbing down to get the wood, it was true. But now that I saw how nervous Louis was it rubbed off on me and made me think about the worst things that could happen: falling and breaking all of my bones.

"Let this knowledge free you to do what you can so easily do already," Armand acknowledged.

"Must we climb down," I asked.

"Climb down, now," Armand commanded.

'If a fall won't kill us then what will," I asked.

"What can kill me," Louis asked.

Again Armand stopped. "The destruction of your remains," He said.

"I never knew this," I commented.

"Don't you know this," He asked Louis.

"Can fire destroy our remains," I asked.

"Fire, dismemberment," Armand admitted, "the heat of the sun. Nothing else."

"Can we be scarred," I asked.

"You can be scarred, yes," Armand admitted.

"Are we resilient," I asked.

"You are resilient," Armand confirmed, "you are immortal."

Louis was looking down through the quiet silver rain into darkness. Then a light flickered beneath the shifting tree limbs, and the pale beams of the light made the street appear. Wet cobblestones, the iron hook of the carriage-house bell, the vines clinging to the top of the wall. The huge black hull of a carriage brushed the vines, and then the light grew weak, the street went from yellow to silver rand vanished altogether; as if the dark trees had swallowed it up. Or, rather, as if it had all been subtracted from the dark.

Armand was seated on the window still looking down at Louis.

'Louis, come with me tonight," He whispered suddenly, with an urgent inflection.

"No," Louis said gently.

"Why Louis," I asked.

"It's too soon," Louis said.

"Too soon to do what," I asked him.

"I can't leave them yet," Louis said as he watched Armand turn away.

Armand looked at the dark sky. He appeared to sigh.

I heard him sigh softly.

Armand's hand closed on Louis's on the window sill. "Very well," Armand sighed.

"A little more time," Louis said.

Armand nodded and patted Louis's hand.

"It's all right," Armand mind-spoke to me. Then he swung his leg over and disappeared.

For a moment Louis hesitated.

"It's time to go," I told Louis.

But then Louis climbed over the sill and commenced to hurry after Armand, never daring to look down.

Unfortunately I did look down once or twice.


	56. Chapter 56

It was near dawn when Louis put his key into the lock at the hotel. The gas light flared along the walls. And Madeleine, her needle and thread in her hands, had fallen asleep by the grate.

Claudia stood still, looking at Louis from among the ferns at the window, in shadow. She had her hair brush in her hands. Her hair was gleaming.

I went over to Claudia and took the brush from her. I brushed her hair for her. Her hair was gleaming.

Louis stood there as all of the pleasures of the room passed over me. There was something comforting here.

Louis looked at his chair. He went and sat down in it and put his hands on his temples.

Claudia went close to him. She climbed into his lap and kissed his forehead.

"Do you know where we have been," I asked her.

"You've been with Armand," She said.

"Do you know why we were with him tonight," I asked.

"You want to go with him," Claudia estimated.

Louis looked up at her.

How soft her face was.

Louis reached out and stroked her cheeks. He lightly touched her eyelids. "I'll see you again," Louis promised her.

"But if Claudia and Madeleine leave Paris, what will happen," I asked Louis.

"Not here, in other places," Louis confirmed.

"How will we find them," I asked him.

"Always, I'll know where you are," Louis told Claudia as she put her arms around his neck.

Claudia held him tight.

Louis closed his eyes and buried his face in her hair. He kissed her neck. Then he began to cover her neck with kisses. He took hold of her round little arms. He began to kiss those next. He kissed her arms all the way to the soft indentation of the flesh in the crooks of her arms. Then he kissed her wrists and her open palms.

Claudia's fingers stroked his hair. As her finger stroked her face she vowed, "Whatever you wish."

"Whatever will make him happy, you are ok with," I asked her.

"Whatever you wish," she agreed.

"Are you happy," Louis asked her.

"Yes," Claudia confirmed.

"Do you have what you want," Louis begged her.

"Louis," she said as she held Louis against against her dress, "I have all that I want." Her fingers clasped the back of Louis's neck. "But do you truly know what you want?" She lifted his face so that he had to look into her eyes.

"Why do you ask," I asked Claudia.

"It's you I fear for," Claudia confessed to Louis.

"Why do you fear for Louis," I asked.

"It's you who might be making the mistake," Claudia confessed.

"What mistakes are we making in going with Armand," I asked, "Is it because we are not with you that it could possibly be a mistake?"

"Why don't you leave Paris with us," She said suddenly.

"Where would we go," I asked her.

"We have the world," Claudia told me, "come with us!"

'No," Louis said as he drew back from her.

"Why not," I asked Louis.

"You want it to be as it was with Lestat," Louis sighed.

"Things can never be that way again," I said softly, remembering Lestat myself. I remembered the first night Claudia and I had been born into the family of Lestat and Louis as our fathers.

"I can't be that way again," Louis admitted.

"Would you if you could," I asked him.

"I won't be," he said strongly.

"It will be something new," Claudia told him.

'How would it be different than it was with Lestat," I asked her.

"It will be different with Madeleine," she told him.

"Are you asking for us to be a family again, like we were before," I asked. Except this time Louis would be the father rather than the mother.

"I don't ask for that again," Claudia said, "it was I who put an end to that. But do you truly understand what you are choosing in Armand?"

Louis turned away from her.

She was being rather stubborn in her dislike of him. There was something mysterious in her failure to understand him.

'He wishes my dead," she told me this time.

How could I explain this to her without sounding pompous that Armand did not wish her death.

"It's meant to be," Louis broke the silence, "It's almost that sort of direction. He alone can give me the strength to be what I am."

"You can't live without him," I commented.

"I can't continue to live divided," Louis admitted.

"Nor should you be this consumed with misery," I acknowledged.

"I can't continue to live consumed with misery," Louis agreed.

"So what is the ultimatum here," I asked him.

"Either I go with him," Louis said, "Or I die.

"That's irrational," I said slowly, trying to come to some type of compromise between Claudia and Louis.

"And it's something else," Louis admitted.

"Is it rational," I asked.

"It is irrational and unexplainable and which satisfies only me…" Louis said.

"Which is," Claudia asked.

"That I love him," Louis said.

"He really does," I confirmed.

"No doubt you do," Claudia mused.

"He loves you too," I told her.

"But then, you could love even me," Claudia mused.

"Claudia," Louis called her name as he held her close to him. Her weight fell on his knee. "Claudia," he sighed softly again.

Claudia drew up close to his chest. "I only hope that when you have need of me, you can find me," she whispered.

"Will you want to be able to get back to us any time," I asked her. I was hoping she would be willing to find us if we could not find her. I was hoping that she would visit and that I would see her another evening this lifetime.

"And that I can get back to you," Claudia sighed.

"What makes you think you won't be able to come back to us," I asked her.

"I've hurt you so often," Claudia pointed out.

"You have caused us some pain," I admitted.

"I've caused you so much pain," her words trailed off. She rested still against Louis.

Louis simply held her.

I climbed up into the chair as well and began to message his shoulders. I rested my hands on the back of his neck on top of Claudia's.


	57. Chapter 57

I got down from behind Louis and went and turned off the lamp. The cold damp air hung in the room like a blanket.

Louis half closed his eyes, and then they were completely closed a second later. Louis had fallen asleep.

Suddenly something in the room began to disturb me. The clock ticked almost imperceptibly on the mantelpiece and the sky grew paler. A lamp went out. I turned to look at what or who had put it out and I saw Santiago standing there.

I went over to him and took him out of the hotel sweet to speak with him. He was dressed in all black, his garments seeming to garner light from every gilt edge or lacquered surface seemed to drain all light away. "What are you doing here," I asked him. They were not supposed to come for Claudia tonight. They were not supposed to come for her for another year.

"I've come to offer you one more time," Santiago confessed, "come with me. Be my daughter, or you can die like the rest of them." He gestured to my three sleeping companions.

I took a step backwards and shook my head. "No," I told him, "I'd rather burn in the sun than be your daughter. You can NOT take Claudia, Louis or Madeleine from me!"

Santiago suddenly grabbed me, "I could not let a single strand of your hair suffer the same fate as she, your sister Claudia. You are coming with me whether you like it or not."

"LOUIS," I screamed at the top of my lungs.

Louis opened his eyes, and it was too late. He stood upright and Claudia's hand slipped onto his arm, and the vision of a host of black-dressed men and woman moving through the rooms, their garments seeming to garner light from every gilt edge, seeming to drain all light away.

I saw Celeste come into the room. She was going towards Madeleine. "MADELEINE," I screamed.

Louis shouted out against them, shouted for Madeleine; saw her wake with a start.

She was a terrified fledgling.

I was still being held captive by Santiago. "Madeleine," I shouted to her, "Grab onto the couch and don't let go!" It was the only thing that I could think for her to do.

Madeleine clung to the arm of the couch, then down on her knees as they reached out for her.

"Let her go, she did nothing wrong," I screamed to them. But they would not listen to me.

Estelle and others filled the mirrors and crowded together to make walls of shifting, menacing shadows.

Louis began to shout to Claudia to run. He pulled back the door. He shoved Claudia through it and then was stretched across it. Estelle and two others held him there.

"LOUIS," I screamed again.

Santiago threw me to another vampire whom I did not know and he began to go towards Louis.

Louis kicked Santiago in the face, but he still had a weak defensive position against him in the Latin Quarter.

The weak defensive position I'd held against Santiago in the Latin Quarter was nothing compared to my strength now. I was too flawed to ever fight with conviction for my own protection. But the instinct to protect Madeleine, Claudia and Louis was overpowering.

Louis kicked Santiago backwards.

I wriggled out of my captors hands and then kicked Santiago farther down.

Santiago reached back to try and strike Louis but I blocked him. I kicked him in the stomach and sent him backwards again. I then struck him with my fist in the ribs. I clawed at him, catching hold of him and scratching his face so the blood rand own over his black collar. I also used my teeth, biting him in the hands when he reached for me yet again. I continued this until I was kicking him against the wall continuously. I kicked him in the shins then in the knee caps. I heard a crack announcing that I had dislocated his knee. After that I kicked him in the groin, which would send any mortal man into the fetal position. I kicked him again in the face and broke his nose again, then struck it with a punch to make sure that it was broken. I struck him in the eyes with my two fists. I punched him in the stomach and made him loose his breath before I began to grab him by his hair and claw my fingers through it through the painful knots in his hair. When he looked up at me I clawed at his face again, making it bleed all over again. I clawed at his eyes so that he could not see me. Then I clawed at his throat viciously, as if I were an animal. I clawed down his black clothes so that they were all tattered and torn. Then once the clothes were destroyed I continued to claw at the bare skin of his chest, making his heart bleed the blood it continued to pump. I continued to kick him and to fight him as Louis struck the powerful, beautiful Celeste.

Claudia's feet sounded on the distant marble stairway.

Then I heard a cry. It was Louis. Celeste was reeling, clawing at him and had caught hold of him. It was then that I left Santiago to go and claw Celeste's lower legs.

Celeste scratched Louis's face so that the blood ran down over his collar.

Then Santiago came back.

Louis was on Santiago, turning with him.

Santiago had gotten hold of him as Celeste had gotten hold of me.

"MADELEINE," I screamed again.

"Fight them, Madeleine," Louis was shouting to her.

But all I could hear was her sobbing. Then I saw her in the whirl, a fixed frightened thing, surrounded by other vampires.

"Don't laugh at her," I screamed at them.

They were laughing that hollow vampire laughter which is like tinsel or silver bells.

Santiago was clutching at Louis's face.

"LET HIM GO," I screamed at Santiago.

Louis bit him. He struck at his chest, his head. He shook Santiago off but then Estelle held him fast. She began to pull him towards the door.

Santiago had fallen through the window behind Louis.

I don't remember weakening. I don't remember any turning point, when anyone's strength overcame my own. I remember being outnumbered and helpless. It was by sheer numbers that I was stilled. We were all surrounded and forced out of the room.


	58. Chapter 58

In a press of vampires I was being forced along the passageway. I was pressed between Santiago and Estelle. And then I was falling down the steps, free for a moment before the narrow back doors of the hotel, only to be surrounded again by Santiago, Estelle and Celeste. Then I was held tight by Santiago. I could see Celeste's face very near to Louis. I scrambled out of Santiago's grasp and ran at Celeste. I wounded her with my teeth as a sort of vengeance for harming Louis.

Louis was bleeding badly, and one of his wrists was held so tightly.

Santiago grabbed me again by the wrists and held them so tightly that there was no feeling in my hands.

Madeleine was next to Louis sobbing. And all of us were pressed into a carriage.

Madeleine was struck on the back of her head by Santiago and lost consciousness.

Then Claudia was struck on the back of her neck by Santiago and lost consciousness.

Over and over again they struck Louis.

After I saw Louis being struck nine times I got between Louis and Santiago. For Santiago was the one striking him. I took eight more strikes on my forehead before I too lost consciousness.

When I awoke I was in the Theatre des Vampires. I could hear Louis crying for Armand. I was back in Armand's main room, but it was not Armand who I saw when I opened my eyes. And then I saw Lestat, standing there in the center of the room, erect, his gray eyes sharp, and his mouth lengthening in a smile. Impeccably dressed he was, as always, and as splendid in his rich black coat and fine linen. But those scars still scored every inch of his white flesh, and how they distorted the taunt, handsome face, and the fine, hard threads cutting the delicate skin above his lip, the lids of his eyes, and the smooth rise of his forehead. And the eyes, they burned with a silent rage that said, "See what I am!"

"This is the one," Santiago asked him.

"Yes, she is the child that I wanted," he said with a vain smile.

"Lestat," I cried to him as I ran into his open arms. I began to cry into his black coat. "Lestat, they have Louis and Claudia," I cried.

"Shhhhhhhh," Lestat soothed me as he brushed my hair gently with his hands. 'I know they are here," He informed me, 'I wish to see them. I want Louis to come back to me, and I thought that this is the only way that I could get him to come to me because he believes that I am still dead."

"But Lestat, why so violently," I asked him, "They hurt Louis. Don't you hear how he is crying so for Armand?"

'Armand will see to Louis soon enough," Lestat sighed.

"And how soon will that be," I demanded.

"In a week," Lestat shrugged.

"A WEEK," I screamed as I flung myself out of his arms, "What is going to be done to him," I demanded.

"He is going to be placed in a coffin for a little bit," Lestat shrugged.

"Why," I demanded.

"To pay for what he and Claudia did to me," Lestat shrugged, "he must pay for his crime. There's no greater crime than to kill one of your own kind. Rules must be upheld. They must learn never to do that to me ever again; otherwise it might just kill me next time..."

"But Louis didn't do it," I cried, "Claudia did! Louis doesn't deserve this! If you want Louis to ever go with you then you must not torture him so!"

Lestat contemplated this for a few moments. Then he nodded, "all right. Louis shall be released later this evening. You are right. We should go to them now." He rose and walked towards me.

I took his hand, not quite knowing what was going to happen to Claudia, Madeleine, Louis, or myself. All I could do at that moment was be grateful that Lestat was alive. We entered the ballroom.


	59. Chapter 59

And then I saw Lestat- the blow that was more crippling than any blow. Lestat, standing there in the center of the ballroom, erect his gray eyes sharp and focused, his mouth lengthening in a cunning smile. Impeccably dressed he was, as always, and as splendid in his rich black coat and fine linen. But those scars still scored every inch of his white flesh, and how they distorted the taunt, handsome face, and the fine, hard threads cutting the delicate skin above his lip, the lids of his eyes, and the smooth rise of his forehead. And the eyes, they burned with a silent rage that seemed infused with vanity, an awful relentless vanity that said, and "See what I am!"

"Do you see how you scared him," I screamed at them.

"This is the one," Santiago asked, thrusting Louis forward.

"No," I answered quickly for Lestat, afraid that he might still put Louis in a coffin.

But Lestat turned sharply to him and said in a harsh low voice, "I told you I wanted Claudia, the child! She was the one!" And now I saw his head moving involuntarily with his outburst, and his hand reaching out as if for the arm of a chair only to close as he drew himself up again, eyes to Louis.

"Louis, talk to Lestat," I told him gently as I approached Louis. I was hoping that they would be able to make up after what had happened so many years ago.

"Lestat," Louis began.

"Aren't you glad that he's alive," I asked.

"You are alive," Louis exclaimed, "You have your life!"

"Is there anything you want him to tell us," I asked Louis.

"Tell them how you treated us," Louis demanded.

"No," Lestat shook his head furiously.

"Why not," I asked Lestat, "What must we do in order for you to tell them?"

"You come back to me, Louis," Lestat said.

For a moment I could not believe my ears. Some saner part of me said, reason with him.

Sinister laugher began to erupt from Louis's lips.

"Louis," I cried to him. I ran to him and held him tightly. His laughter was beginning to scare me even more than I already was.

"Are you mad," He asked Lestat through his laughter.

"What would you give him if he were to go to you," I asked Lestat.

"I'll give you back your life," Lestat said, his eyelids quivering with the stress of his words, his chest heaving, that hand going out again and closing impotently in the dark.

"Santiago, say something to Lestat," I begged.

Lestat turned to Santiago. "You promised me I could take him back with me to New Orleans." And then, as he looked from Santiago to Estelle, they began to surround us. Lestat's breath became frantic.

I went to Lestat. "Lestat, what is it," I asked.

"Claudia," he burst out.

"What about Claudia," I asked him.

"Where is she," He burst out.

"Why does it matter," I asked him.

"She's the one who did it to me," Lestat burst out, "I told you!"

"By and by," said Santiago. And when he reached out for Lestat, Lestat drew back and almost lost his balance.

I lead him to a chair.

He had found the chair arm he needed and stood holding fast to it, his eyes closed, regaining his control.

"But he helped her," Santiago insisted.

"He didn't help her," I corrected him.

"Aided her," said Santiago, drawing nearer to him.

"Lestat, he's coming closer," I told him as I backed up to Lestat's side. I was more afraid of Santiago than I was about what Lestat would do to me.

Lestat looked up. "No," he said.

"Isn't there something more that you need to discuss with Louis," I asked Lestat.

"Louis, you must come back to me," Lestat told Louis.

"Why," I asked him.

"There's something I must tell you," Lestat told Louis.

"About what," I asked him.

"About that night in the swamp," Lestat told Louis. But then he stopped and looked about again, as though he were caged, wounded, and desperate.

'Listen to me, Lestat," Louis began now, "You let her go, you free her…. I will…"

"You will what," I asked him.

"I'll return to you," Louis said, the words sounding hollow, metallic.

"Louis, come over here," I called him.

Louis tried to take a step towards him. His eyes became almost hard.

Lestat was looking at him, studying him, struggling all the while against his own fragility.

And Celeste had her hand on Louis's wrist, holding him back.

'You must tell them," Louis went on.

"Tell them what," I asked.

'How you treated us, that we didn't know the laws," Louis explained.

"But Claudia knew slightly more than we did," I acknowledged.

"She didn't know of other vampires," Louis said.

There was a sound then of something dragging across the floor. I could hear Madeleine's exhausted crying.

Louis looked around and saw in a chair.

"Madeleine," I cried out to her.

And when she saw my eye on her, her terror seemed to increase. She tried to rise but they stopped her.

'Lestat," Louis said, "What do you want of me?"

"Would you give it to him if you knew what he wanted," I asked.

"I'll give it to you," Louis promised.

And then Louis saw the thing that was making the noise.

"Lestat, look," I told him.

And Lestat had seen it too. It was a coffin with large iron locks on it that was being dragged into the room.

"Where is Armand," Louis asked desperately.

"Lestat, don't put Louis in that coffin," I begged, 'He didn't do it!"

"She did it to me, Louis. She did it to me. You didn't! She has to die!" said Lestat, his voice becoming thin, rasping, as if it were an effort for him to speak.

"They don't need that coffin," I told Lestat.

"Get that thing away from here," Lestat told them.

"Why," I asked him.

"He's coming home with me," Lestat said furiously to Santiago.

Santiago only laughed.

Celeste laughed, and the laughter seemed to infect them all.

"You promised me," Lestat said to them.

"I promised you nothing," said Santiago.

"They've made a fool of you," Louis said to Lestat bitterly as they were opening the coffin.

"They made him into a what," I questioned in shock.

"A fool of you! You must reach Armand," Louis told Lestat.

"Why Armand," I asked.

"Armand is the leader here," Louis burst out. But he didn't seem to understand.

What happened then was desperate. I began to kick at Santiago, struggling to free Louis's arms. I began to rage against Celeste.

Yet they forced me down into the floor as the forced Louis down into the coffin.

Louis's frantic efforts served no purpose against them.

I could hear Madeleine's cries, her awful cries, and the fear that at any moment Claudia's cries might be added to them.

Louis rose against the crushing lid.

I raced at it and held it at bay for an instant before it was forced shut on him. "LOUIS," I screamed. The locks were being shut with the grinding of metal and keys. Words of long ago came back to me, a strident Lestat in that faraway palace where the four of us had quarreled together: 'a starving child is a frightful sight.' I began to tremble. Armand will not let it happen. I had to call for Armand. I had to bring him back. I had to find him soon if I was to save Claudia, Madeleine and Louis.


	60. Chapter 60

As Louis was being dragged out of the room I did not waste any time. I began to call to Armand. I began to call for Armand; he must come home this night, I thought desperately. "ARMAND," I called out both verbally and with my mind. But another thought had come over me even as I'd phrased those words: what if he did not come? No, I quickly told myself. I couldn't let myself think that way. He had to have a coffin hidden in the theatre where he returned to rest. I had to find that coffin. I took off out of that room and began to search every room that I could find within the theatre.

Madeleine's cries were gone by the time that I found the coffin. But he was not within the coffin. He was somewhere else. I had to keep thinking positively, no matter how hard it was. My mind kept thinking, what if he had left for more than one night? What if he had left for centuries or, worse, forever? I had to keep turning my mind from those thoughts with other thoughts. I kept telling myself, tomorrow night he will come. But I had to tell him sooner what had happened to Louis, Claudia and Madeleine. I thought to myself, where would Armand go to escape the other vampires? Where could he go to escape? Somewhere where Santiago did not know about…. Then it finally occurred to me, the tower that Armand, Louis and I had been in the night before! He had to be there. I ran out of the theatre as fast as I could to the tower. I climbed it without fear, disregarding whether or not the humans within the house would see me. Once I reached the tower, I found him. He was there, sitting exactly where he had the night before.

Armand turned to me. He was surprised to see me, I could tell that much.

"Armand,' I screamed as I rushed to him. I launched myself into his arms and could not stop crying. "They've taken them. They have them. Santiago and the others, they stole Louis, Claudia and Madeleine. They have put Louis in a coffin and intend to keep him in there for centuries, until he starves. And Claudia, they are going to kill her! We have to save them!"

Armand held me in his arms tightly. "We cannot do anything about it tonight, little one," he whispered to me, "We must return to my coffin before the sun kills you too."

I looked over his shoulder. He was right. The sun had begun to rise already and I had not even begun to notice. I hugged Armand close to me and began to sob uncontrollably. At that moment I knew that there would be no saving Claudia or Madeleine.


	61. Chapter 61

I awoke to a voice. It was distant but distinct. It said my name twice. For an instant I didn't know where I was. I'd been dreaming, something desperate which was threatening to vanish. Then I opened my eyes and I saw Armand standing over me.

He had risen a few moments before me and had been the one calling my name. "We must save Louis," Armand told me.

I nodded as I rose out of the coffin. I had not seen where they had taken him the night before. "We should split up and find Louis," I told Armand, "go around calling Louis's name, it'll wake him up as you woke me up."

I went straight to the ballroom and began to call Louis's name. I stood in the center of the room where Lestat and I had stood the night before. I looked to where they placed Louis in the coffin and began to go strait. I went down the first set of stairs that I saw. I followed the wall until I saw some fresh earth upon the ground. I picked up some of the dirt; it could not have been more than a week old. "Louis," I called. I placed my hands upon the wall and a brick gave way. These bricks had been laid very recently. I pulled out a second brick and looked inside. There was the coffin that I had seen them put Louis into! "Armand," I called to him, "I think I found Louis!"

'Louis," Armand called, "Louis!"

'I'm here," I heard Louis scream. It was hardly audible; his voice was so trapped within the coffin.

"He's there," I told Armand, "We have to get him out of there!" I began yanking out bricks from the wall franticly.

"Louis, don't be afraid," Armand called to him. Then he began to take out more bricks from the wall. And there was a cracking sound, and then a thunderous falling of the bricks. Several of them struck the coffin on their way down.

I lifted them off of the coffin one by one.

While I did this Armand pulled off the locks by the nails.

I pulled off the last lock. The hard wood of the top creaked. A pinpoint of light flooded into the room. "Louis, breathe," I called to him.

Louis drew in a breath and sweat broke out on his face.

Armand and I opened the lid.

Louis sat up in the coffin.

"We have to go," I told Louis quickly.

"Hurry," Armand said.

"We must go quietly so that Santiago does not hear us," I commented softly.

"Don't make a sound," Armand instructed.

"But where are we going," Louis asked.

I could see a passage of rough bricks strewing out from the doorway Armand had broken down. And all along that passage were doors which were sealed, as this door had been.

"Are there other coffins behind these bricks," I asked Armand.

"I will answer all your questions later," Armand said as he pulled Louis up. "Make no sound," he told Louis with a whisper.

"Let's go," I told them as I began to creep along the passage.

We were creeping along the passage and Armand stopped at a wooden door.

"We can't be seen," I whispered.

Armand extinguished the lamp. It was completely black for an instant until the seam of light beneath the door brightened.

"Open the door softly," I recommended.

Armand opened the door gently so that the hinges did not make a sound.

I heard Louis breathing. We were entering that lower passageway which led to Armand's cell. But as Louis raced along behind him he put his hand up to stop Armand.

"Armand, we have to go," I told him.

Armand pulled Louis after him. Once we reached the alleyway beside the Theatre des Vampires Armand and Louis stopped. Armand was on the verge of going on.

"What is it," I asked.

Armand shook his head even before Louis spoke.

"You can't save Claudia," I questioned softly.

"I can't save her," Armand said.

"We have to leave," I told them.

"You don't honestly expect me to leave without her," Louis screamed.

"We can't save her," I told Louis softly.

"They have her in there," Louis screamed, "Armand, you must save her!"

"Armand can't save her," I told him as I went to his side.

"You have no choice," Louis almost commanded.

"Why," I asked.

"Why do you say this," Armand answered.

"Armand has no more power than you do," I told him gently.

"I don't have the power," Armand said.

"You don't understand," I sighed softly.

"You must understand," Armand said.

"Understand what, specifically," I asked Armand.

"They'll rise against me. There is no reason why they should not. Louis," Armand sighed.

"No one could save her," I whispered softly.

"I tell you," Armand sighed.

"Tell him again," I begged softly. I wanted Louis to understand.

"I cannot save her," Armand sighed.

"Tell him why," I begged him softly.

"I will only risk losing you," Armand admitted, "You can't go back."

Louis refused to admit this could be true. Suddenly he rushed back into the passage.

"Armand, we must go with him," I told him as I rushed after him. We were heading for the stairway to the ballroom. I could hear the other vampires. I ran in front of Louis and then, as I reached the top of the steps, I saw Celeste in the door of the ballroom.

She held one of those stage masks in her hand. She was merely looking at Louis.

'Don't you dare hurt Louis," I mind-spoke to her with a glare.

Celeste did not appear alarmed. In fact, she appeared strangely indifferent. But she did nothing. She stepped backwards into the ballroom; she turned, seeming to enjoy the subtle movement of her skirts, seeming to turn for the love of making her skirts flare out, and she drifted in a widening circle to the center of the room. She put the mask to her face ad said softly behind the painted skull, "Lestat… it is your friend Louis come calling. Look sharp, Lestat!"

I went up to Lestat and crawled into his lap. I glared at Celeste. I was showing that I had more power than she did.

She dropped the mask, and there was a ripple of laugher from somewhere.

I looked around and I saw they were all about the room, shadowy things, seated here and there, standing together. I cuddled closer to Lestat who was in an armchair.

Lestat curled his shoulders in to shield me. He placed me beneath his black cloak to protect me. He placed his face upon my forehead. "It's ok, my little one," he whispered to me. He stroked the top of my head with his hands. Slowly he looked up to Louis, his full yellow hair falling into his eyes. There was fear in them. It was undeniable.

And then I saw a fragile silken thing hidden in Lestat's cloak. It was Claudia's yellow dress. I crumpled the dress to my chest and hugged it tightly as I began to cry softly.

Now he was looking at Armand.

"Armand, you must take control over them," I requested of him softly.

And Armand was moving silently through the room with slow, steady steps, and all the other vampires moved back away from him, watching him.

Celeste looked at me.

"Hello Celeste," I said to her softly.

"Bonsoir, Monsieur," Celeste said to Armand. Celeste bowed to him as he passed her, that mask in her hand like a scepter.

"Don't acknowledge her," I requested Armand.

Armand did not look at her in particular. He looked down at Lestat.

"Is there anything you'd like to ask Lestat," I asked Armand.

"Are you satisfied," Armand asked Lestat.

Lestat's gray eyes seemed to regard Armand with wonder, and his lips struggled to form a word. I could see that his eyes were filling with tears.

"Lestat," I whispered softly.

"Yes," he whispered now, his hand struggling in my curls. But then he looked at Louis, and the tears spilled down his face. "Louis," he said his voice deep and rich now with what seemed an unbearable struggle. "Please, you must listen to me," he requested.

"Louis, listen to Lestat," I requested.

"You must come back," Lestat told Louis. And then, bowing his head, he grimaced with shame.

Santiago was laughing somewhere.

"We must leave now," I told Armand through mind speak, "Lestat, Louis and I must leave before Santiago does anything more to harm us."

Armand was saying softly to Lestat that he must get out, leave Paris; he was an outcast.

And Lestat sat there with his eyes closed, his face transfigured with his pain. It seemed the double of Lestat, some wounded, feeling creature I'd never known. "Please," he said the voice eloquent and gentle as he implored Louis.

"Please what," I asked Lestat.

"I can't talk to you here," Lestat sighed to Louis.

"If you can't talk here how do you plan on making Louis understand," I asked.

"I can't make you understand," Lestat sighed.

"You need to make Louis understand where you want him to go with you," I told Lestat.

"You'll come with me," Lestat asked Louis.

"For how long," I asked him.

"For only a little while," Lestat requested.

"Until when," I asked him.

"Until I am myself again," he asked Louis.

"Louis, what do you think of this idea," I asked him.

"This is madness," Louis said, his hands rising suddenly to his temples.

"What's madness is that we still have not found Claudia," I whispered softly.

"Where is she," Louis screamed.

"I don't know," I admitted slowly.

"Where is she," He asked again. He looked about the room, at the still passive faces of the other vampires, those inscrutable smiles.

"Lestat," he said. He turned and grabbed at the black wool of his lapels. And then he saw the thing in my hands. He knew what it was and in an instant he'd ripped it from my hands and was staring at it, at the fragile silken thing that it was- Claudia's yellow dress.

Lestat's hand rose to his lips, his face turned away from Louis. He buried his face in my shoulder. And the soft, subdued sobs broke from him as Lestat sat back while Louis stared at the dress.

Louis's fingers moved slowly over the tears in the dress, the stains of blood, his hands closing, trembling as he crushed it against his chest as I had done days before. For a long moment it seemed he simply stood there, time had no bearing upon himself or upon the other shifting vampires with their light, eternal laughter filling our ears.

I put my hands over my ears. I reached out for Louis, but he wouldn't let go of the dress.

He made it so small that he hid it within his hands.

I became so afraid that I got out of Lestat's lap and began to run. I got as far as a doorway before I saw a row of candles and I quickly lit them with my mind so that there would be more light in the room. I remember a row of candles burning, an uneven row coming to light one by one against the painted walls. A door stood open to the rain, and all the candles spluttered and blew on the wind as if the flames were being lifted from the wicks. But they clung to the wicks and were all right. I knew that Claudia was through the doorway. The candles moved. The vampires had hold of them.

Santiago had a candle and was bowing to Louis and gesturing for him to pass through the door.

Louis was barely aware of him.

I didn't care about him or the others at all. Something in me said if you care about them you will go mad. And they don't matter, really. Claudia mattered. Where was she? We had to find her. And their laughter was remote, and it seemed to have a color and a shape but to be part of nothing.

Then Louis saw something through the open doorway.

Then he and I saw the same thing, standing at the door, two wet shriveled things that had been alive, mother and daughter in one another's arms, the murdered pair on the floor but these two lying under the gentle rain were Madeleine and Claudia, and Madeleine's lovely red hair mingled with the gold of Claudia's hair, which stirred and glistened in the wind that sucked through the open doorway. Only that which was living had been burnt away- not the hair, not the long, empty velvet dress, not the small blood-stained chemise with its eyelets of white lace. And the blackened, burnt, and drawn thing that was Madeleine still bore the stamp of her living face, and the hand that clutched at the child was whole like a mummy's hand. But the child, the ancient one, my Claudia, was ashes.

A cry rose from Louis, a wild cry that came from the very bowels of his being, rising up like the wind.

I bent down next to them and brushed their hair gently with the back of my hand. The golden hair lifting those loose strands rising flying upwards. And a blow hit me as I began to cry out. The next thing I knew Louis and Santiago were fighting.

Louis grabbed hold of Santiago. He began to pound him repeatedly. He all but destroyed him, twisting his face while Santiago simply grinned.

Santiago couldn't free himself. He began to cry out from the pain. His cries mingled with Louis's. Santiago's boots came down into the ashes of Claudia's foot.

This is when I too began to pound him in the chest.

Louis threw him backwards, away from him. Louis was still crying. His tears mingled with the rain.

Santiago lay away from Louis and Louis was reaching for him.

"Armand, he's going to kill him," I sighed softly, having given up my own fight.

Armand stopped Louis from reaching for Santiago. Armand was struggling against Louis. Armand forced Louis out of the tiny graveyard into the whirling colors of the ballroom, the cries, the mingling voices, that searing, silver laughter.

"Lestat, go to him," I told him softly through the laughter.

"Louis," Lestat called to him, "wait for me, Louis, I must talk to you!"

Armand looked Louis in the eyes, telling Louis softly, "I could not prevent it."

"He couldn't stop Madeleine from dyeing," I told him softly.

"I could not prevent it," Armand said softly. And they were dead, simply dead.

Louis was losing consciousness.

Santiago was in the chamber with Madeleine and Claudia, lifting their hair to the wind.

I could not gather their bodies up with me, could not take them out. But the one that I could bring with me out of there was Louis. I turned my attention to him.

"Armand, catch him," I requested through mind speak, "the shock has been too much for him."

Armand put his arm around Louis's back, his shoulder under Louis's arm, and he was all but carrying Louis through some hollow wooden echoing place, and the smell of the street was rising, the fresh smell of the horses and the leather, and there were the gleaming carriages stopped there.


	62. Chapter 62

Suddenly I got the impulse to run away with Louis. I ran back to the hotel and grabbed my small coffin. I ran back with it under my arm. Then I whispered in Louis's ear, "run away with me."

And he began to run down the Boulevard des Capucines with the small coffin under his arm.

People were making way for him as he ran. Dozens of people were rising around the crowded tables of the open café. A man even lifted his arm to make way for Louis.

Suddenly Louis stumbled and he was caught by Armand.

"It would be easier to run away if you have a carriage," Armand commented to me with a smile. Armand looked at Louis as he began to sink into Armand's arms.

Yet Louis walked, he moved as he watched the gleam of his boots on the pavement. "Is he mad," Louis asked. He was referring to Lestat.

"Why would Lestat be mad," I asked Louis.

"That he says these things to me," He asked. He was asking of Lestat, his voice shrill and angry, even the sound of it giving me some comfort.

"I am madder than Lestat is," I commented. I began to laugh.

Louis began laughing and then he began laughing loudly.

"What's so funny," I asked through my own laughter.

"He's stark-raving mad to speak to me in this manner," Louis laughed.

"I heard him myself and he didn't sound mad to me," I admitted with a shrug.

"Did you hear him," Louis demanded.

I could tell how exhausted Louis was by the way that he had been laughing. "Armand, Louis needs to sleep," I whispered to him. The events of this evening were proving to be too much for him.

Armand's eyes said sleep to Louis.

Louis began to cry again as he clenched his teeth to try and keep it in. It was so loud and full it would destroy us all if it continued for long.

And then I conceived of everything too clearly. We were walking now.

Louis was walking in a rather belligerent sort of way. He also had the drunken man's fumbling hands as well.

I took one of his hands to make it stop fumbling and took him to a café window to stop walking for a moment.

There was a man in the window smoking a pipe.

Louis was crying out through clenched teeth.

The man in the café had risen from his table and steam spread out on the glass in front of his face.

Armand stood beside Louis waiting, and we were in the crowded Boulevard des Capucines.

We continued to walk. In seconds we were in the Boulevard du Temple.

"Get away from me," Louis suddenly said to Armand.

"You don't want Armand near you," I asked Louis.

"Damn you into hell don't come near me," Louis growled to Armand.

"Is this a warning or a threat," I asked Louis softly.

"I warn you, don't come near me," Louis warned. He began walking away from him up the boulevard.

As Louis walked past a man and woman stepped aside for Louis, the man putting his arm out to protect the woman.

I began to go after Louis.

Then Louis was running. People saw him running. He appeared wild. He moved too fast for their mortal eyes to see.

I chased Louis until he got tired.

When Louis stopped he was weak.

"Louis, come sit down," I called to him from a church stone step.

Louis came and sat down on the stone step beside a church at one of those small side doors, carved into the stone, which was bolted and locked for the night. The rain had abated. Or so it seemed. And the street was dreary and quiet, though a man passed a long way off with a bright, black umbrella.

I called to Armand to come to a tree close by.

Armand was there in seconds. Armand stood at a distance under the trees. Behind him it seemed there was a great expanse of trees and wet grasses and mist rising as if the ground were warm.

Louis began to calm down. We had come a great distance from the theater at this point.

The remains of Madeleine and Claudia were still there, victims of a holocaust in each other's arms. And I felt resolute.

"Armand, could you prevent it,' I asked him softly.

"I could not prevent it," Armand said softly to Louis.

Louis looked up at Armand's face.

Armand's face was utterly sad. Armand looked away from Louis as if he felt it was futile to try to convince him of this, and I could feel his overwhelming sadness.

"You really couldn't," I asked him.

"I could not have prevented it," Armand repeated.

"Oh, but you could have prevented it," Louis said softly.

"How do you know this," I asked Louis.

"You know full well that you could have," Louis said softly to Armand.

"How do you know this," I asked Louis.

"You were the leader," Louis insisted.

"Just because he's the leader doesn't mean that he knew anything about what happened," I commented.

"You were the only one who knew the limits of your own power," Louis pointed out.

"How do you know that he knew this," I asked.

"They didn't know," Louis pointed out.

"How do you know that," I asked.

"They didn't understand," Louis said.

"And Armand did," I asked.

"Armand's understanding surpassed others," Louis pointed out.

Armand looked away still. But I could see the effect of Louis's words on him. I could see the weariness in his face, the dull lusterless sadness of his eyes.

"You held sway over them," Louis pointed out.

"Only through fear," I pointed out.

"They feared you," Louis went on.

"And you think the fear of what he could do could have would have stopped them," I demanded.

"You could have stopped them if you'd been willing to use that power even beyond your own self-prescribed limits," Louis pointed out.

"And do you know Armand well enough to say why he didn't do this," I asked.

"It was your sense of yourself you would not violate," Louis pointed out.

"How could he have violated who he truly is," I asked, "That would be like violating the truth."

"Your own precious conception of truth," Louis muttered.

"Do you really think that you understand why Armand did not save them," I sighed.

"I understand you perfectly," Louis growled.

"And who do you understand," I asked.

"I see you the reflection of myself," Louis finally admitted.

"Armand, look at Louis," I mind-spoke to Armand.

Armand's eyes moved gently to engage Louis's. But he said nothing. The pain of his face was terrible. It was softened and desperate with pain and on the verge of some terrible explicit emotion he would not be able to control. He was in fear of that emotion. He was feeling Louis's pain with that great spellbinding power of his which surpassed mine.

"I understand you only too well," Louis continued to speak.

"What is it that is in you that is so similar to Armand," I asked.

"That passivity in me has been the core of it all, the real evil," Louis hissed.

"And you think this is a weakness," I asked him.

"That weakness, that refusal to compromise a fractured and stupid morality, that awful pride," Louis sighed.

"But those things are all of the things that have made you the being that you are," I commented with almost complete adoration.

"For that, I let myself become the thing I am, when I was wrong," Louis whispered in shame.

"What have you done wrong that you find such shame in," I asked.

"For that, I let Claudia become the vampire she became, when I knew it was wrong," Louis blamed himself.

"What did you do that was so wrong," I asked as I went over to Louis and sat down next to him.

"For that, I stood by and let her kill Lestat when I knew that was wrong, the very thing that was her undoing," Louis admitted.

"You had no hand in that," I reminded him as I reached over and took his hand in both of mine.

"I lifted not a finger to prevent it," Louis pointed out.

"But you never did anything wrong to Madeleine," I pointed out, trying to make him feel better.

"And Madeleine, Madeleine I let her come to that, when I should never have made her a creature like ourselves," Louis proclaimed.

"But it was not wrong to make her," I argued.

"I knew that was wrong," Louis argued.

"You were too passive to deny Claudia a mother," I sighed.

"well, I tell you I am no longer that passive, weak creature that has spun evil from evil till the web is vast and thick while I remain its stultified victim," Louis proclaimed.

"What are you saying," I asked him softly.

"It's over," Louis screamed.

After a long pause I asked Louis. "What are you going to do now," I asked Louis softly.

"I know now that I must do," Louis sighed.

"I warn you, whatever you do, please show the same mercy upon Armand and me as we have shown you," I requested softly.

"And I warn you, for whatever mercy you've shown me in digging me out of that grave tonight where I would have died: do not seek your cell in the Theatres des Vampires again," Louis told Armand.

"He can't go back to the theatre," I asked Louis.

"Do not go near it," Louis told Armand. With that he rose to his feet. He didn't wait to her his answer.

Armand didn't even attempt one.

"I must go with Louis," I told Armand softly, with tears in my eyes, "I have to make sure that he's ok."

Armand nodded.

I ran after Louis. I caught up with him quickly and I took his hand. Together we left Armand. I looked back at Armand to see that he was going into the church.

Louis did not look back. Louis did not care.


	63. Chapter 63

I followed Louis to the cemetery in Montmartre. Why that place, I'm not certain. It wasn't far from the Boulevard des Capucines. Montmartre was country field then, and dark and peaceful compared to the metropolis.

Louis looked exhausted.

"We should feed a little bit before we lay ourselves to rest," I suggested to him.

Wandering among the low houses with their kitchen gardens, Louis killed.

One he had finished he returned to the cemetery where I had found us a coffin to sleep in.

Louis scraped the remains out of it with his bare hands. I emptied out the foulness. And we lay down to a bed of foulness, of damp, of the stench of death. Lying with Louis now gave me comfort. Rather, it gave me what I wanted. I was closeted in that dark, smelling the earth, away from all humans and all living forms. But that was short. When the cold, gray winter sun had set the next night, I was awake, feeling the tingling numbness.

There were living things that inhabited the coffin scurrying around Louis. I went after one and caught it rather easily. I brought it with me out of the coffin and drained it.

Louis emerged slowly under the faint moon and wandered out of the graves and out of the cemetery. He looked over into a kitchen. Louis walked over to the kitchen and took a small scythe in his hands. Its sharp curved blade still caked with green weeds from the last mowing.

"We should clean it," I suggested as I delicately took off a weed off of the blade.

Louis wiped it clean and ran his finger along the sharp blade. "We must move quickly," Louis said to me, "Go get us a carriage."

I did not then know what Louis was going to do. But I obeyed. I ran back to the Hotel Saint-Gabriel and grabbed all of the cash that we had. I found a carriage waiting outside the hotel. I gave the man a single one of the bills and promised him more if he would take me to where Louis awaited me in the graveyard.

Once we got Louis we went to the closest bar in the Boulevard des Capucine. We were there for hours. Louis pretended to drink with the driver.

I talked with him while Louis gained his cooperation in driving us at dawn from Paris to Fontainebleau.

I thought I had known what his plan was. I was so happy. We were going to leave Paris! We were going to leave the theatre and everyone in it behind us! They could never harm Louis again! So I played along. I was his sick daughter who had to sleep in the carriage, where my delicate health required I not be disturbed under any circumstances. My father, Louis, had to be with me. This privacy being so important that Louis was more than willing to add a generous sum to the amount that Louis was already paying him simply for his not toughing even the door handle of the carriage until Louis emerged from it.

And when we were convinced he was in agreement and quite drunk enough to be oblivious to almost everything but the gathering up of the reins for the journey to Fontainebleau, we drove slowly, cautiously into the street of the Theatres Des Vampires and waited some distance away for the sky to begin to grow light.


	64. Chapter 64

The theater was shut up and locked against the coming day. Louis crept towards it when the air told me that Louis had a plan. What he was going to do, I didn't know.

All I knew was that, closeted far within, the vampires of the theater were in their coffins already. I could sense that there were two late vampires lingering on the verge of going to sleep.

They did not hear Louis put pieces of wood against the bolted doors.

Louis quickly drove in nails, which then locked these doors from the outside.

A passer-by took some notice of what Louis did.

I ushered them along, telling them, "He is boarding up the theatre with the authority of the owner."

They went on, but before Louis could finish what he was doing, a few ticket-sellers came up to us.

"There is no matinee today," I told them graciously, "You can come back tomorrow evening after sundown and we will be selling tickets for the shows this week."

They soon left but were replaced with a few ushers.

"Could you escort me to the entrance of the theatre," I asked them with an innocent smile.

The ushers nodded. One of them picked me up and took me to the front of the building, away from the actors' entrance.

There I quickly disposed of them, feeding upon them and then placing their bodies within the theatre.

When I returned to where Louis had been he was leading the carriage up to Armand's alley.

A few men with brooms approached the door.

I quickly took a broom from one of them. "I'll handle cleaning up," I told them.

The men quickly turned and left obviously being glad of the day off.

I could sense that there was one remaining guard inside who was guarding the vampires in their daily sleep. I quickly went inside Armand's door, and once inside the lower passage, I found the guard.

"Armand is no longer here," I told him, "your job is done."

The guard quickly left, having believed that I was one of the vampires of the theatre.

I went to Armand's cell to find he was not there. The coffin was gone. In fact, everything was gone but the furnishings including the dead boy's enclosed bed. In that room Louis stood with an open barrel.

Louis rolled another barrel towards the stairs. He hurried along, splashing the exposed beams with kerosene and flinging it on the wooden doors of the other cells. The smell of it was strong, stronger and more powerful than any sound Louis might have made to alert anyone.

But one vampire did smell the kerosene. She rose from her coffin. It was Celeste.

All too quickly I began to realize what Louis's plan was. He was going to kill them.

I ran to Celeste. "Get out of here while you can," I told her, "That smell that you are smelling right now is going to kill you if you don't leave in a few seconds."

Those noises also awoke her twin Estelle.

"Take your sister and get out of here before you begin to hear screams," I warned her.

That is how I saved Estelle and Celeste. They took off before Louis could make it down the stairs.

Louis stood stark on the stairs with the barrels and the scythe, listening.

I heard nothing, nothing of the vampires themselves.

Clutching the handle of the scythe Louis ventured slowly upwards until he stood in the door of the ballroom. No one was there. Louis began to splash the kerosene on the horsehair chairs.

I went to the doorway of the small yard where Madeleine and Claudia had been killed. I opened the door to say goodbye to Madeleine and Claudia one more time, but they were not there. They were dead. The remains, the matted disheveled golden hair was all gone. There was no time.

Louis was running through dark corridors that we hadn't explored before, bathing old wooden doors with the kerosene.

Vampires were lying closeted within.

I beckoned to them to see if any of them were awake, to see if any of them could be saved, "Run, run away." I told them.

A woman came rushing on cat feet into the theater itself. She fled out of the lobby doors as Louis was flinging a dark stain across the great velvet stage curtain.

He flung a stain across the padded chairs, and the draperies of the lobby doors. And finally the barrel was empty and Louis threw it away behind the draperies of the lobby doors to fuel the flame. He pulled out a crude torch he'd made and put his match to the kerosene-drenched rags that used to be the draperies of the lobby doors. And setting the chairs alight, the flames licking their thick silk and padding as he ran towards the stage and set the fire rushing up that dark curtain into a cold, sucking draft. In seconds the theater blazed as with the light of day, and the whole frame of it seemed to creak and groan as the fire roared up the walls, licking the great proscenium arch, the plaster curlicues of the overhanging boxes. Louis had no time to admire it.

I had no time to savor the smells of the burning boxes. We were fleeing to the lower floor again.

Louis thrust the torch into the horsehair couch of the ballroom, into the curtains, into anything that would burn, including the boards above.

Celeste and Estelle were above us. I heard them thundering on the boards above- in a room I'd never seen.

And then I heard the unmistakable opening of a door. But it was too late, the building was alight. They would be destroyed.

Louis ran for the stairs and I followed him.

Then I sensed someone else awakens. It was Santiago. I heard a distant cry rising over the crackling and roaring of the flames. I heard Louis's torch scrape the kerosene-soaked rafters, the flames enveloping the old wood, curling against the damp ceiling. It was Santiago's cry, I was sure of it; and then, as Louis hit the lower floor, I saw him above.

Then he was behind Louis, coming down the stairs, the smoke filling the stairwell around him, his eyes watering, his throat thickened with his choking, his hand out towards Louis as he stammered, "you… you….. Damn you!"

Louis froze, narrowing his eyes against the smoke.

Water was rising from the flames, all the hydration completely leaving my body.

Suddenly Santiago used all of his power to fly at Louis with such speed that he became invisible. And as the dark thing that was his clothes rushed down, Louis swung the scythe. It struck his neck. Santiago fell sideways, both hands reaching for the appalling wound. The air was full of cries. It was full of screams, and a white face loomed above Santiago, a mask of terror. Some other vampire ran through the passage ahead of Louis towards that secret alleyway door. But Louis stood there poised, staring at Santiago, seeing him rise despite the wound. And Louis swung the scythe again, catching him easily. And there was no wound, just two hands groping for a head that was no longer there. And the head, blood coursing from the torn neck, the eyes staring wild under the flaming rafters, the silky hair matted and wet with blood, fell at Louis's feet. He struck it hard with his boot and sent it flying along the passage. He ran after it, the torch and the scythe thrown aside as his arms went up to protect him from the blaze of white light that flooded the stairs to the alley.

I ran out into the rain. The rain descended in shimmering needles into my eyes. I ran to the carriage and awoke the driver. I told him, "Start the horses as quickly as you can as soon as my father and I get into the coach. You must go as fast as you can for as long as the horses can manage."

The slumped driver straightened at Louis's hoarse command from the doorway to the theatre, his clumsy hands going instinctively for the whip, and the carriage lurched as Louis pulled open the door, the horse driving forwards fast as he grappled with the lid of the chest, his body roughly to one side, his burnt hand slipping down into the cold protecting silk.

I jumped into the chest with Louis. The lid came down into concealing darkness. My hands as well as Louis's had been burnt, I'm not sure if it was from the sun or from the burning theatre. As I felt my head fall back, I could tell that Louis was thinking of Claudia again. I hugged him tightly into my arms. "We couldn't take them," I reassured him. I felt so sorry for all of the vampires who were yet to be consumed by the fire. I could still hear the screams in my ear. I silently cried into Louis's chest for all of the dead within that theatre: Claudia, Madeleine, and all of the actors and actress vampires.


	65. Chapter 65

The pace of the horses increased driving away from the corner of the burning building. Yet I could smell the smoke; it choked me.

I began to cough.

Louis was coughing as well. He raised his hands to block his eyes and I could see that his hands were burnt.

I gently took his hands in mine and cradled them against me as I snuggled up closer to him. I soon stopped coughing. But we were driving on, away from the smoke and the cities. We were leaving Paris. The Theatres des Vampires was burning to the ground.

"Relax Louis," I told him gently, "It is done."

Louis's head fell back onto the bottom of the coffin. He was still thinking about Claudia and Madeleine.

"At least Claudia and Madeleine died together," I told him gently, "And the theatre along with them."

I heard Louis whisper softly to the spirit of Claudia. "I couldn't take you away. I couldn't take you. But they will lay ruined and dead all around you."

"You really think that they will all die by the flames," I asked Louis softly.

"If the fire doesn't consume them, it will be the sun," Louis reassured me.

"But what if the fire alone doesn't kill them" I asked.

"If they are not burnt out, then it will be the people who will come to fight the fire who will find them and expose them to the light of day."

"Do you promise that they will rest in peace," I asked him softly.

"But I promise you, they will die as Claudia has died," Louis promised softly.

"Everyone," I asked, softly.

"Everyone who was closeted there this dawn will die," Louis assured me.

"Were they the only people that you have ever murdered," I asked curiously. Louis had executed everything so perfectly that it almost seemed that he had murdered other vampires before.

"And they are the only deaths I have caused in my long life which are both exquisite and good," Louis admitted.


	66. Chapter 66

Louis and I spent a day in Fontainebleau. By day we stayed in a cellar of a house that had holes in the roof which let the rain into the house by day. The house was made out of brick. It was nearly crumbling. A few skeletal rafters jabbed at the sky like stakes. There were many beautiful murals in every room of the house all of the same painted face. It was the face of a beautiful woman. The woman almost looked like an ancient vampire who had been suffered total obliteration the night before. In each mural there was the same woman as a different thing. In one she was an angel, in another she was a demon, each of them of the same woman. There were two newspapers in the walkway up to the house. It looked like no one had been there for centuries.

I soon realized that this house must have belonged to that vampire that had suffered obliteration.

Louis and I took some time to grieve over the loss of Claudia. We relaxed so as to ease our guilt of murder.

I lounged in the house, reading the latest newspaper by candle light. Once I was finished with this I moved on to the books that were left in the house. All nine of the books were all plays by Shakespeare. I read Romeo and Juliet with Louis. We took turns reading each page out loud.

The next day when we got the newspaper with the news of the burned down theatre, I knew that we had to go back.

"Louis, we have to see the rain-flooded cellar where unidentified things are left from the fire," I told him softly as I lay the newspaper down on my lap.

"Why," Louis asked.

"We have to see all of the scorched bricks in the building to make sure that there is nothing left," I admitted softly.

"Everything was crumbling as we left the building if you didn't notice," Louis pointed out.

"Yes, but how do we know if there are any skeletal human bones left if we don't go see for ourselves," I asked softly.

"The only people that remain are probably the people within the murals in the ballroom," Louis estimated.

"How do we know that the ballroom was destroyed," I asked him.

"All that was left when we left was rubble," Louis estimated softly.

"What if identifiable things remain," I asked him.

Louis was silent for a while. Then he sighed softly. "We can't go tonight, there will be too much of a crowd around the theatre from the news paper publicity," he pointed out.

"Then when will we know how many buildings the fire we started scorched," I asked.

"We shall go tomorrow, as soon as the sun sets," Louis planned.


	67. Chapter 67

Two nights later we returned. We had to see that rain-flooded cellar where every brick was scorched, crumbling, where a few skeletal rafters jabbed at the sky like stakes.

"Let's go check out the ballroom," I suggested to Louis as a start.

Those monstrous murals that once enclosed the ballroom were blasted fragments in the rubble, a painted face here, a patch of angel's wing there, the only identifiable thing that remained, except for a portrait of Armand. His patient, white face, whose hunger and equanimity was strangely one. It was Armand; I would have known his patient face anywhere.

Suddenly I sensed a crowd of humans coming towards the theatre to clean it up. "Louis, we have to go," I told him softly.

We dashed out of the theatre just in time for a paper boy to pass by. I bought two papers from him quickly, giving him more than enough money for them. With the evening newspapers, we pushed our way to the back of the crowded little theatre café across the street, and there, under the cover of the dim gas lamps and thick cigar smoke, Louis read the accounts of the holocaust aloud softly to me. "How many bodies were found in the burnt-out theatre," I asked him softly.

Few bodies were found in the burnt-out theatre, but clothing and costumes had been scattered everywhere, as though the famous vampire mummers had in fact vacated the theater in haste long before the fire.

I decided to go back to the theatre to see if I could find any clothing pieces that would fit me. I snuck through a crowd in the front of the café and snuck back into the ballroom. From the ballroom I went to the room where only bones remained of the vampires. I found nine dresses that had been worn by some of Armand's little human girls that he had kept as he had once kept Denis. I quickly brought these with me back to the café where Louis had just reading the newspaper.

But, finally, when he put the paper aside and sat thinking things over.

"What are you thinking about," I asked him.

"It's strange," Louis commented softly.

"What is," I asked him.

"There were no doormen," He commented, "that night that it happened."

"That's because they didn't have a job to do during the day time," I told him with a shrug.

"It doesn't matter anymore," Louis sighed. Claudia was gone beyond reprieve.

And I had less reason to live than I'd ever had. And yet my sorrow did not overwhelm me. As the hours passed, as the smoke of the café grew thicker and the faded curtain of the little lamp lit stage rose and fell, and robust woman sang there, the light glittered on their paste jewels, their rich, soft voices often plaintive, exquisitely sad- I wondered vaguely what it would be to feel this loss. I sat and listened to the performer for a while. "What are you feeling right now, Louis," I asked him softly. I could sense that he was feeling a bit of outrage. He was thinking about the loss of Claudia, just as I was.

He would not have told his woes to a living creature. A tear slid down the side of his face.

"Where are we going now," I asked him gently.

Strange how he wandered out of the café then, circling the ruined theater, wandering finally towards the broad Avenue Napoleon and following it towards the place of the Louvre. It was as if that place was calling to him.

I had never been inside its walls. Id passed its long façade a thousand times, wishing that I could live as a mortal girl for a week to move through those many rooms.

Louis was bent on it now.

Somewhere along the Avenue Napoleon, I heard steps behind us. I turned around to see Armand. I reached up to take his hand and we walked, following Louis. "Let Louis know that you are here. I don't want to scare him," I suggested to Armand through mind-speak.

Armand was signaling, letting Louis know that he was near.

Yet Louis did nothing.

"Louis," I called to him softly.

Louis slowed his pace and let Armand and I fall into step with him, and for a long while we walked, saying nothing. Louis dared not look at Armand. He was thinking of Armand while we walked.

I thought about Claudia. Claudia had been Louis's love.

Louis walked as one numbed.

"Louis, say something," I told him softly to break the tension.

"You know what I've done," Louis said finally. We had turned off the avenue and I could see ahead of me the long row of double columns on the façade of the royal Museum.

I suddenly realized something. Among all of the rubble Armand's coffin had not been found. "What happened to your coffin, Armand," I asked him softly.

"You removed your coffin as I warned you," Louis asked him softly.

"Yes," he answered. There was a sudden, unmistakable comfort in the sound of his voice.

It weakened Louis. "And yet you are here with me now," Louis commented.

"Do you think that Armand is planning on doing something," I asked.

"Do you mean to avenge them," Louis asked.

"No," he said.

"But surely you despise me for it," Louis assumed.

"Why would he despise you," I asked Louis.

"Surely you respect some rule, some allegiance to your own kind," Louis assumed.

"No," Armand said softly.

It was amazing to me how logical his response was.

"There were guards; there were those ushers who slept in the theater. Why weren't they there when I entered," Louis asked, "why weren't they there to protect the sleeping vampires?"

"Because they were in my employ and I discharged them," Armand said.

"You did what," I asked him softly.

"I sent them away," Armand said.

Louis stopped.

Armand showed no concern at Louis's facing him, and as soon as their eyes met the world went black.

The world seemed empty. It seemed that Louis, Armand and I were the only living beings left on the earth.

"You did this, knowing what I planned to do," Louis asked him.

"Yes," Armand said.

"But you were their leader," Louis pointed out.

"What does it matter if he was," I asked.

"They trusted you," Louis pointed out.

"Do you think they would have believed him if he had told them," I asked.

"They believed in you," Louis pointed out.

"And why would they do that," I asked him.

"They lived with you," Louis pointed out.

'I don't understand," I told Louis slowly.

"I don't understand you," he said to Armand, "Why?"

"Think of any answer you like," Armand said calmly and sensitively, as if he didn't wish to bruise Louis with any accusation or disdain, but wanted him merely to consider this literally, "I can think of many."

"Such as," I asked.

"Think of the one you need and believe it. It's as likely as any other. I shall give you the real reason for what I did, which is the least true: I was leaving Paris. The theater belonged to me. So I discharged them."

"But with what you knew," Louis began.

"I told you, it was the actual reason and it was the least true," Armand said patiently.

'If you were able to let them be destroyed so easily, would you ever destroy us," I asked.

"Would you destroy me as easily as you let them be destroyed," Louis demanded.

"Why shouldn't I," he asked.

"My god," Louis whispered.

"You're much changed," Armand commented.

"In what ways," I asked Armand.

"But in a way, you are much the same," Armand commented.

"Let us walk some more, I think we all need time to think," I suggested to the boys. I took Louis's hand and we walked on for a while and then, before the entrance to the Louvre, Louis stopped. Its many windows were dark and silver with the moonlight and the thin rain. There was a faint light moving within, as though a guard walked among the treasures. I envied him slightly for being out of the rain. And I fixed my thoughts on him, that guard, calculating how I might get to him, how to take his life and his lantern and his keys. The plan was confusion. I was thirsty. I disappeared into the Louvre. I quickly got to him and took his life. I took his lantern and I returned outside to Armand and Louis. And it was finished.

Armand had his firm arm around Louis's shoulder. Armand loved Louis, and Louis loved Armand back.

"Is loving Armand so evil," I asked Louis, trying to prove to Louis that it's not evil to love.

"Yes," Louis said softly.

"Is this love truly evil," I asked him.

"That is the crowning evil, that we can even go so far as to love each other, you and I," He told Armand.

"But I love you both as well," I told him as I wrapped my arms around Louis's legs.

"And who else would show us a particle of love," Louis asked.

"Yes but other people would show us compassion," I told Louis gently.

"A particle of compassion," Louis asked.

"Have mercy upon us," I requested Louis with tears almost in my eyes.

"Compassion, or mercy," Louis questioned.

"But no one knows us as we know each other," I told Louis, "They are just too ignorant to show us mercy."

"Who else, knowing us as we know each other, could do anything but destroy us," Louis asked.

"We won't destroy each other," I reassured Louis.

"Yet we can love each other," Louis said softly.

And for a long moment Armand stood there looking at Louis, drawing nearer, his head gradually inclining to one side, his lips parted as if he meant to speak.

"Please Armand, please don't say anything," I requested Armand through mind speak, "Louis is very set upon his opinion."

But then Armand only smiled and shook his head gently to confess he didn't understand.

This made Louis stop thinking.

I saw that the rain had stopped. I saw that the air was clear and cold, that the street was luminous. And I wanted to enter the Louvre.

"I want to enter the Louvre," Louis formed the words to tell Armand this, to ask him if he might help Louis do what was necessary to have the Louvre till dawn.

I showed Armand that I had the keys to the Louvre that I had taken off of the guard.

Armand thought it a very simple request. He only said he wondered why he had waited so long.


	68. Chapter 68

Louis and I had gone to the Louvre that night to lay down our souls, to find some transcendent pleasure that would obliterate pain. The magnificent paintings of the Louvre were not for me intimately connected with the hands that had painted them, except for one specific painting. One painting had such a story to it that I could not help but wonder about the painter.

The next morning Louis did one thing. He went back to our rooms in the Hotel Saint Gabriel. It was his purpose to take up some things of Claudia and Madeleine and put them into coffins and have graves prepared for them in the cemetery of Montamarte.

I helped him gather most of Claudia's things and put them into her old coffin. I buried it in the cemetery by myself. When I had returned to the room Louis stayed a short while in the rooms, where all was neat and put right by the staff, so that it seemed Madeleine and Claudia might return at any time. Madeleine's embroidery ring lay with her bundles of thread on a chair-side table.

Louis looked at the ring and at everything else, and he left.

I grabbed the ring and threw it into Madeleine's coffin. I buried this coffin next to Claudia in the cemetery. I met Louis outside of the hotel.

On his way out Louis stood on the sidewalk before the doors of the hotel waiting for the carriage that would take us to meet Armand. Louis and I saw the people who walked there- the restless boulevard crowd of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, the hawkers of papers, the carriers of luggage, the drivers of carriages- all these in a new light.

I was hungry, so I went to one of the well dressed ladies who was reading a paper. I asked her if she would read the paper to me. She agreed. As she read, I slowly drained her.

We left Paris very soon after that. Louis told Armand that he wanted to return to the Mediterranean as he had so long dreamed. And we took leave of Paris early one evening by carriage without the slightest hint of ceremony.

We fed upon many scholars, making such intimate contact with them that we learned a lot about the Mediterranean. We saw the furnishings from many different houses.

Armand was more than willing.

Next we went to Greece. There we fed upon the thieves, almost purifying the city within the month that we had been there. We saw many works of art.

Finally we went to Egypt. We saw the deserts there, and more importantly we saw the pyramids and the graves of the kings. We made contact with those grave-thieves who know more of the graves than do scholars, and we went down into the graves yet unopened and saw the kings as they were buried, saw the furnishings, and works of art stored with them and the paintings on their walls. That evening, we slept in one of the pyramids with the dead king.


	69. Chapter 69

And that is the end of the story, really. Nothing really happened with Armand. Louis went nowhere that wasn't merely inevitable. Louis had a journey through the Louvre that was merely prophetic. He never changed after that.

I sought for much in the great source of change which is humanity. And even in my love with the beauty of the world, I sought to learn so much more that could be given back to humanity. I drank of the beauty of the world as a vampire drinks. I was satisfied. I was filled almost to the brim. But I was dead. And I was changeless. The story ended in Paris. For a long time I thought that Claudia's death had been the cause of the end of things. That if Madeleine had left Paris safely, things might have been different. I might have loved them again. But now I have come to see that was false. Even if Claudia had not died, it would have all turned out almost the same. Coming slowly to know Armand's evil…. It was all the same. I wanted none of it.

And, deserving nothing better Louis closed up. And even Armand who was our constant companion, existed at a great distance from him. And the night is almost ended.

I want to tell you this because it is very important. The story is incomplete without it. We travelled the world after we left Paris, first Egypt, then Greece, then Italy, Asia Minor, Japan- wherever Louis chose to lead us. Time ceased to exist on any meaningful bias during these years. I was often absorbed by the paintings in the many museums we visited. But all during these years I had a vague desire to return to New Orleans. I never forgot New Orleans. And when we were in tropical places and places of those flowers that grow in Louisiana, I would think of it acutely. And from time to time, Armand would ask Louis to take him to New Orleans. So we did. I wanted to do this because Armand had been such a gentleman to me during all of these years. He treated me well. He treated me with respect. It seemed his asking caused Louis to forget some fear that he had. Perhaps the fear was stronger than he knew. We came to America and lived in New York for a long time. Louis continued to put it off. Then, finally, Armand urged Louis in another way. He told Louis something we had concealed from him since the time we were in Paris.

"We should tell him about Lestat," I suggested to Armand, "He needs to know if we are to return to New Orleans."

Armand told Louis softly, "Lestat did not die in the theatre des vampires."

Louis asked Armand about those vampires, Armand told him they all had perished.

But Armand told me now that this wasn't so.

Lestat had left the theatre the night Louis had run away from Armand and sought out the cemetery in Montmartre. Two vampires who had been made with Lestat by the same master had assisted him in booking passage to New Orleans.

I cannot convey to you the feelings that came over Louis when he heard this.

"Armand and I only meant to protect you," I told Louis softly.

Armand told him he had protected Louis from this knowledge, hoping that he would not undertake a long journey merely for revenge, a journey that would have caused Louis pain and grief at the time.

But Louis didn't really care. He hadn't thought of Lestat at all the night he had torched the theatre. Louis had been thinking of Santiago when he did this. Lestat, in fact, around in Louis feelings which he hadn't wished to confide in anyone, not even me. But when he heard this now from Armand it was as if the veil that protected him were thin. And with that spurring me on, we returned to New Orleans. It was late spring of this year. We had taken the railway station because I had never been on the railway before. And as soon as Louis emerged from the railway station, I knew that we had indeed come home. It was as if the very air were perfumed. Of course, New Orleans had changed. The air was slightly more peculiar. But far from lamenting those changed, I was grateful for what seemed still the same. The pavements were just as warm as I remembered. I could find in the uptown Garden District, which has been in my time the Faubourg Ste.-Marie, one of the stately old mansions that dated back to those times, so removed from the quiet brick street that, walking out in the moonlight under its magnolia trees. There were the honeysuckle and the roses, and the glimpse of Corinthian columns against the stars; and outside the gate were dreamy streets, other mansions… it was a citadel of grace.

"We should take Armand to the Rue Royale," I suggested to Louis.

In the Rue Royale, where we took Armand past tourists and antique shops and the bright lit entrances of fashionable restraints, Louis was astonished to discover the town where Lestat, Claudia and I had made our home, the façade little changed by fresh plaster and whatever repairs had been done within.

I wanted to see these repairs. So I snuck away from Louis and Armand. The house looked almost the same within it. It made me think about the memories I had with Louis, Lestat and Claudia. Shortly after I left the house I saw a vampire in New Orleans, a sleep white faced young man walking alone on the broad side-walks of St. Charles Avenue in the early hours before dawn. And I was at once convinced that if Lestat had lived here that vampire might know him. Of course, the vampire didn't see me. I had long ago learned to spot my own kind in large cities.

Armand, in his brief visits with vampires in London and Rome, had learned that the burning of the Theatre des Vampires was known throughout the world, and that both Louis and Armand were considered outcasts.

Battles over this meant nothing to Louis, although I had so tried to convince him that he was not an outcast to me.

But I began to watch for this vampire in New Orleans and to follow him though often he led me merely to theatres. But the next night, finally, things changed.


	70. Chapter 70

It was a very warm evening, and I could tell as soon as I saw him on St. Charles that he had someplace to go. He was walking fast. And when he turned off St. Charles finally on a narrow street which became at once shabby, I felt sure he was headed somewhere. But then he entered one side of a small wooden duplex and brought death to a man there. This he did very fast, without a trace of pleasure, and after he was finished, he gathered his wife up from the bassinet, wrapped it gently in a blue blanket and came out again into the street. Only a block or two after that, he stopped before a vine covered iron fence that enclosed a large overgrown yard. I could see an old house beyond the trees, dark, the paint peeling, and the ornate iron railings of its long upper and lower galleries caked with orange rust. It seemed a doomed house, stranded here among the numerous small wooden houses, its high empty windows looking out on what must have been a dismal clutter of low roofs, a corner grocery, and a small adjacent bar. But the broad, dark grounds protected the house somewhat from these things, and I had to move along the fence quite a few feet before I finally spotted a faint glimmer in one of the lower windows through the thick branches of the trees. The vampire had gone through the gate. I could hear the woman wailing, and then nothing. And I followed, easily mounting the old fence and dropping down into the garden and coming up quietly onto the long front porch. It was an amazing sight I saw then I crept up to one of the long, floor length windows. For despite the heat of this breezeless evening when the gallery,, even with its warped and broken boards, might have been the only tolerable place for human or vampire, a fire blazed in the grate of the parlor and all its windows were shut, and the young vampire sat by that fire talking to another vampire who hovered very near it. My eyes widened as I studied this stooped vampire. I longed to wipe away the dust on the window glass which would not let me be certain of what I suspected.

"You all leave me," he whined now in a thin voice.

"But Lestat, I would never leave you," I said as I entered through the window.

"Dramana," Lestat explained, "come and feast with us!"

We drained the wailing woman to make her stop crying.

"The wood, the wood," Lestat said feebly, "we must have a blaze going."

The other vampire handed him a chunk of wood and Lestat heaved the chunk into the blaze.

"Lestat let us go out hunting. You are trembling. I reached out and took Lestat's hand to stop it from shaking.

"Bring me a big fat furry cat," Lestat requested of me.

I nodded and took off out another window. I walked down St. Charles until I found a cat that was at least nine pounds. I swiftly coaxed the cat into my arms. I stroked it until it began to purr. With that I took off and carried it back to Lestat.

Lestat drained it until it was a small furry body. Lestat's body became a little warmer. He began to tremble less.

The floor was littered with cat corpses. I began to pick them up and dispose of them. When I came back in as soon as the window opened I breathed the stench of the room and its sweltering heat.

"Lestat, may I open some windows to let some air in," I asked him.

"Yes," He said softly.

I opened nine windows within the house. Soon there was a nice summer breeze going through the room. There were still many rotted cats on the floor. The swarming of insects on the rotted animals scratched my senses so that I recoiled despite myself, despite Lestat's desperate pleas for me to come to him.

Lestat had his dry hands on mine now, drawing me towards him and towards the warmth, and I could see the tears welling in his eyes, and only when his mouth was stretched in a strange smile of desperate happiness that was near painful did I see the faint traces of the old scars. I reached up and traced a scar on his face. How baffling it was, this smooth faced shimmering immortal man bent and rattled and whining like a crone.

"I knew I'd find you," I said softly. I pushed his hand gently away. I reached up and whipped some of his tears away.

"I'm so glad to see you," Lestat whispered to me in quick words.

"I'm glad to see you too," I replied in half-articulated words. I was beginning to cry too. I had missed Lestat so much.

I could barely understand Lestat when he said, "I've dreamed of your coming."

"Shhh," I said to him softly, "Don't try to speak….. It's all right." This seemed to increase Lestat's inexpressible excitement.

He looked down at me with his extraordinary eyes and a smile played on his lips, a smile that grew bigger like a flame.

I leapt into Lestat's arms and we held each other for what seemed like hours.

Finally I pulled a chair to the fire and sat down.

Lestat dropped down gratefully into his chair and reached out to strike the lapels of my dress with both hands.

And then he grimaced, as if he were feeling a pain he couldn't identify, and again, the fine map of scars appeared for an instant. He was looking off, his hand up to his ear, as if he meant to cover it to defend himself from some terrible sound. "I didn't…. I didn't mean to let them do it," Lestat stammered through his tears.

"Didn't mean to let who do what," I asked him softly.

"I mean that Santiago…" Lestat started.

"What did Santiago do," I asked.

"That one, you know, he didn't tell me what they planned to do," Lestat strained to say.

"That's all past," I reassured Lestat.

"Yes," he nodded, "Past. She should never…"

"Claudia should have never what, Lestat," I asked gently.

"Why, you know," Lestat said shaking his head.

"What do I know," I asked Lestat.

"She should have never been one of us," Lestat said. He rapped his sunken chest with his fist as he said "Us" again softly.

It seemed then that she had never existed. That she had been some illogical dream. And too long gone. I looked at him. I stared at him and tried to think, yes, he is right. "Don't fear me," I said, as though talking to myself.

"Why should I not fear you," Lestat demanded.

"I bring you no harm," I pointed out to Lestat.

"You've come back to me," he whispered in the thin voice.

"Yes, I am home," I told him gently.

"You've come home again to me, haven't you?"

"Yes, I have," I told him softly.

And again he bit his lip.

"I've come back to you," I told him.

He looked at me desperately.

"Of course I have," I told him with a smile.

He was frantic for a moment.

"Let us go onto the porch." I suggested to Lestat.

Lestat commenced one gesture and he walked out onto the porch with me.

"I only wanted to see you, Lestat," I told Lestat.

But Lestat didn't seem to hear me. Something else had distracted him. And he was gazing off, his eyes wide, his hands hovering near his ears.

Then I heard it too. It was a siren. And as it grew louder, his eyes shut tight against it. "Lestat," I said to him over the siren, which rose now in the same terrible fear.

Lestat's fingers covered his ears.

"Lestat it's only a siren," I said to him.

But his agony obliterated me. His lips were drawn back from his teeth in a terrible grimace of pain.

I ran over to him and threw my arms around his legs.

"I can't bear it," Lestat growled. And then he came forward out of the chair.

I took hold of him and held him tightly to me.

'Help me," Lestat requested. He took hold of me and held tight to me.

I took his hand.

"Stay with me," Lestat requested. He bent down, pressing his head against my chest.

"I'll stay with you," I told Lestat.

He was holding my hand so tight that he almost caused me pain. The room was filled with the flashing red lights of the siren, and then it was going away.

"Why are you afraid," I asked Lestat. And as I looked down at him, as I saw his yellow hair pressed against my dress, I had a vision of him from long ago. I saw a tall gentleman his voice singing me to sleep with songs from the opera we had seen that week. I began to wonder, was this the price of that involvement? A sensibility shocked by change? I thought quietly of all the things I might say to him. "Lestat, you are immortal, the sirens can't hurt you," I remind him, "Nothing is condemning you to this retreat. You are surrounded with unmistakable signs of inevitable death; this place needs to be cleaned up if you are going to live here." It seemed the silence of the room rushed back around us, like a dark sea that the siren had driven away. The flies swarmed on the festering body of a cat. I went to this body and picked it up along with eight others. I did away with them out the closest window.

When I had come back Lestat had risen. "You won't say with me," He sighed as he straightened himself.

"Of course I will. I'll stay with you and talk with you all night," I promised him.

Lestat bent over and slunk back into his chair. But then he looked away and seemed suddenly absorbed. "I wanted to talk to you so much," He said.

"When," I asked Lestat as I climbed up into his lap.

"That night I came home to the Rue Royale I only wanted to talk to you!" he told me. He shuddered violently. It was as if I had struck a blow to him. He stared blindly ahead.

I took his hand to stop his shuddering. "Well I'm here now," I told him gently, "talk to me now."

"I went to Paris after you…" Lestat admitted.

"What what it you wanted to tell me," I asked.

I could well remember his mad insistence in the Theatre des vampires. I hadn't thought of it in years. And I was aware that I spoke of it now with great reluctance.

He only smiled at me, an insipid, near apologetic smile. And shook his head.

"What wad it you wanted to talk about," I asked again.

I watched his eyes fill with a soft bleary despair.

"We don't have to talk about it if it causes you pain," I tell him softly as I take his hand.

"But you will stay," he insisted.

"Yes," I answered.

"Close it," He waved his finger at the window.

I went to all the windows and closed all except one. During all that time I merely watched him. I was thinking of all the things that had passed between us. I was remembering things which I supposed I could never forget. And I was conscious then of that same overwhelming sadness which I'd felt when I saw the place in the Rue Royale. Only, it didn't seem to me to be sadness for Lestat, for that smart, gay vampire who used to live there then. It seemed sadness for something else, something beyond Lestat that only included him and was part of the great awful sadness of all the things I'd ever lost. It seemed then I was in a different place. And this different place was very real and it was a room where the insects had hummed as they were humming here and the air had been close and thick with death and with the spring perfume. And I was on the verge of knowing that place and knowing with a terrible pain, a pain so terrible that my mind veered away from it, said, no, don't take me back to that place- and suddenly it was receding and I was with Lestat here now. Astonished I saw my own tear fall onto Lestat's lap.

Lestat reached down and wiped at the tears that were in fact there and looked at them in amazement. "But," Lestat was saying softly, "How can you be as you are?" He was looking down at me, his mouth in that same grimace, his face wet with tears.

"I am patient with myself," I tell Lestat gently, "when I feel like crying I let myself cry. When I am cold I simply find an animal or a human to drink from."

"How can you stand it," Lestat asked me with a slight shudder.

"I wear layers and I feed when I get cold," I shrugged, "And I try and come out on warm nights."

He was looking at me, his mouth in that same grimace, his face wet with tears. "Tell me, help me understand! How can you understand it all?"

"I only understand what I've witnessed for myself," I admitted, "I have not seen everything there is to understand in this universe. But I do understand some things. I understand that we must feed every night, and so I do."

"How can you endure it," Lestat asked. And I could see by the desperation in his eyes and deeper tone which his voice had taken that he too was pushing himself towards something that for him was very painful, towards a place where he hadn't ventured in a long time.

"I feed on animals some nights, and I feed on humans on other nights," I admitted, " I try to take only one person from a single household or group of people if I can, that way if people need to endure a loss then they only have to endure one at a time. I also watch how much I drink. Sometimes I only take sips while other times I go in strait for the kill so as to not harm the person I'm feeding off of." Even as I look at him his eyes appeared to become misty, confused.

Lestat pulled the robe up tight, and shaking his head, he looked at the fire. A shudder passed through him and he moaned.

I pulled the robe up tighter around Lestat's neck so as to keep him warm. I felt weary, weary of him and weary of this sadness. And I longed again for the stillness outside, that perfect quiet to which I'd become so completely accustomed. But I realized, as I rose to my feet, that Lestat was looking at me.

Lestat looked at me now with large, agonized eyes and his smooth ageless face. "You'll come back," Lestat asked me as he gestured to his lap.

I nodded. I crawled back up to his lap and held him tightly to me.

"You'll come to visit me," Lestat asked me.

"Yes I will."

I got off his lap and turned away from him, hearing him calling after me. "It's time to get into your coffin, Lestat. I'll stay with you for tonight."

Lestat rose up behind me and I led him to his coffin. I helped him settle down onto his coffin. I climbed in after him and nestled up to him. I soon fell asleep.


	71. Chapter 71

The next night I sent the stiff young vampire to go find Louis. He had to see this place and help me clean it up. If this place was going to be cleaned, I would need his help.

"It's Louis," Lestat said.

I turned to the window to see Louis standing there.

"Louis," Lestat said.

I went towards the window.

"Let him in," Lestat commanded me and he gesture frantically, like an invalid, for me to obey.

As soon as the window opened Louis breathed the stench of the room. I could tell by the grimace he made as he entered the room through the window. The insects swarmed around the rotted animals.

Lestat was desperately pleading for Louis to come to him. There, in the far corner, was the coffin where Lestat slept, the lacquer peeling from the wood, half covered with piles of yellow newspapers. And bones lay in the corners, picked clean except for bits and tuffs of fur.

"Louis, go to Lestat," I suggested softly, "He is not doing well."

Lestat had his dry hands on Louis now, drawing him towards him and towards the warmth, and I could see the tears welling in his eyes; and only when his mouth was stretched in a strange smile of desperate happiness that was near to pain did Louis see the faint traces of the old scars. How baffling and awful it was, the smooth-faced, shimmering immortal man bent and rattled and whining like a crone. Lestat needed to feed.

I snuck to the house where we had taken the woman from the night before. There was a whining baby in the house. It had probably been whining for hours. It would die within a day if it was left alone. I wrapped it up tightly around the baby. It continued to cry. I took it quickly to Lestat's house. When I arrived I heard Louis say "Yes, Lestat. I have come to see you."

Louis pushed his hand gently, slowly away and moved towards the baby that I was holding.

The baby was crying desperately now from fear as well as hunger. As soon as Louis lifted it up and loosened the covers, it quieted a little and then he patted it and rocked it.

"Lestat, talk to him," I suggested to him.

Lestat began whispering to Louis now in quick, half-articulated words that I couldn't understand, the tears streaming down his cheeks, the young vampire at the open window with a look of disgust on his face and one hand on the window latch as if he meant at any minute to bolt.

"So you're Louis," said the young vampire. This seemed to increase Lestat's inexpressible excitement, and he whipped frantically at his tears with the hem of his robe.

I went to Lestat and climbed into his lap. With the sleeve of my dress I whipped at the tears that were left.

A fly lit on the baby's forehead, and involuntarily Louis gasped as he pressed it between two fingers and dropped it dead to the floor. The child was no longer crying. It was looking up at Louis with extraordinary blue eyes, dark-blue eyes, its round face glistening from the heat, and a smile played on its lips, a smile that grew brighter like a flame.

I went over to the baby and smiled at the baby. It smiled back at me. I had never brought death to anything so young, so innocent, and I was aware of this now.

Louis was rocking the baby gently.

I pulled a chair close to Louis and he pulled it to the fire and sat down.

"Don't try to speak… it's all right," Louis said to Lestat.

Lestat dropped down gratefully into his chair and reached out to stroke the lapels of Louis's coat with both hands.

I smiled at Louis. "You had a lapel out of place," I told him gently as I stroked a lapel.

"But I'm so glad to see you," Lestat stammered through his tears, "I've dreamed of your coming….. Coming…." He said. And then he grimaced, as if he were feeling a pain he couldn't identify, and again the fine map of scars appeared for an instant.

"Look out, a siren is coming," I warned Lestat in mind-speak.

Lestat was looking off, his hand up to his ear, as if he meant to cover it to defend himself from some terrible sound. "I didn't…" he started, and then he shook his head, his eyes clouding ad he opened them wide, strained to focus them.

"Tell him, Lestat, I told Lestat gently.

"I didn't mean to let them do it, Louis…I mean that Santiago….. That one, you know, he didn't tell me what they planned to do," Lestat said.

"Please believe Lestat, he is not to blame for what happened," I begged Louis.

"That's all past, Lestat," Louis said.

"Yes, yes," Lestat nodded vigorously. "Past. She should never…. Why, Louis, you know…" and Lestat was shaking his head, his voice seeming to gain in strength, to gain a little in resonance with his effort.

"Claudia should have never what," I urged Lestat.

"She should have never been one of us, Louis," Lestat said. And he rapped his sunken chest with his fist and said 'us' again softly.

She. It seemed that he had never existed.

"Louis, Lestat is afraid of you. He is afraid that you haven't come home to us yet," I told Louis softly.

"Don't fear me, Lestat," Louis said, as though talking to himself, "I bring you no harm."

"You've come back to me, Louis," Lestat whispered in that thin, high pitched voice, "you've come home again to me, Louis, haven't you?" and again he bit his lip and looked at Louis desperately.

"No, Lestat," Louis shook his head.

Lestat was frantic for a moment, and again he commenced once gesture and then another and finally sat there with his hands over his face in a paroxysm of distress.

The other vampire, who was studying Louis coldly asked, "Are you…. Have you come back to him?"

"No, of course not," Louis answered.

"Leave us," I told the other vampire coldly.

And he smirked, as if this was as he expected that everything fell to him again, and he walked out onto the porch. I could hear him there very near, waiting.

"I only wanted to see you, Lestat," Louis said.

"Lestat, the siren's here," I warned him.

Lestat didn't seem to hear Louis. Something else had distracted him. And he was gazing off, his eyes wide, his hands hovering near his ears.

Then I heard it also. It was a siren. And as it grew louder, his eyes shut tight against it and his fingers covered his ears. And it grew louder and louder, coming up the street from downtown.

"Lestat," I cried as I ran to him. I jumped into his lap and cradled his head into my chest, covering one of his hands that were over one of his ears.

"Lestat," Louis cried.

The baby began to cry from the loud noise. They rose now in the same terrible fear of the siren.

Lestat's agony obliterated me. His lips were drawn back from his teeth in a terrible grimace of pain.

"Louis, help me," I mind-spoke to Louis, "We need to calm Lestat down."

"Lestat, it's only a siren," Louis said to him stupidly.

And then he came forward out of the chair and took hold of Louis and held him tight to him, and, despite himself, Louis took his hand.

Lestat held me in his other arm.

I nestled in between their four legs.

Lestat bent down, pressing his head against Louis's chest and holding his hand so tight that it caused him pain.

I curled up on Louis's knees cuddling Lestat. The room filed with the flashing red lights of the siren, and then it was going away.

"Louis, I can't bear it, I can't bear it," Lestat growled through his tears. "Help me, Louis, stay with me."

"But why are you afraid," Louis asked, "don't you know what these things are?" And he looked down at Lestat, as Louis saw his yellow hair pressed against his coat. Then Louis looked like he was having a vision. Of what, I do not know. But he looked like he was remembering or thinking about something.

Meanwhile I had a vision of my own of the stately gentleman that Lestat used to be. It seemed the silence of the room rushed back around us, like a dark sea that the siren had driven away. The flies swarmed on the festering body of a rat, and the child looked quietly up at Louis as though his eyes were bright baubles, and its dimpled hand closed on the finger that he poised above its tiny petal mouth.

I held my finger above the baby's other hand. It closed on the fingers that I poised above its tiny hand.

Lestat had risen.

I helped him straighten, but only for him to bend over and slink into the chair. "You won't stay with me," he sighed to Louis. .

'Lestat," I called him.

Lestat looked at me and seemed suddenly absorbed in me. "Tell him what you want," I suggested, hoping that they could compromise in any way.

"I wanted to talk to you so much," Lestat said. "That night I came home to the Rue Royale I only wanted to talk to you!" he shuddered violently, eyes closed, his throat seemed to contract. It was as if the blows Louis had struck him then were falling now. He stared blindly ahead, his tongue moistening his lips, his voice low, almost natural, "I went to Paris after you…"

"What was it you wanted to tell me," Louis asked, "what was it you wanted to talk about?"

I could well remember Lestat's swirling black cape that he used to wear. I hadn't thought of his rich voice for almost a year. And I was aware that I spoke of it now with great reluctance.

But Lestat only smiled at Louis, an insipid, near apologetic smile. And shook his head.

Louis watched his eyes fill with a soft, bleary despair.

I felt a profound relief.

Louis spoke of Lestat's mad insistence in the theatre des Vampires.

"But you will stay," Lestat insisted.

"No," Louis answered.

"And neither will I," said that young vampire from the darkness outside. And he stood for a second in the open window looking at us.

Lestat looked up at him and then sheepishly away, and his lower lip seemed to thicken and tremble. "Close it, close it," he said, waving his finger at the window. Then a sob burst from him and, covering his mouth with his hand, he put his head down and cried.

I went to Lestat and stroked his hair as he cried.

The young vampire was gone. I head his steps moving fast on the walk, heard the heavy chink of the iron gate.

And we were alone with Lestat, and he was crying. It seemed a long time before he stopped, and during all that time Louis merely watched him. I was thinking about Lestat's flawless voice. I was remembering things which I had almost completely forgotten. And I was conscious then of that same overwhelming sadness which I'd felt when I saw the place in the Rue Royale where we had lived. Only, it didn't seem to me to be sadness for Lestat, for that smart vampire who used to live there then. It seemed sadness for something else, something beyond Lestat that only included him and was part of the great awful sadness of all the things I'd ever lost or loved or known. It seemed then I was in a different place, a different time. And this different place and time was very real, and it was a room where the insects had hummed as they were humming here ad the air had been close and thick with death and with the spring perfume. And I was on the verge of knowing that place and knowing with it a terrible pain, a pain so terrible that my mind veered away from it, said no, don't take me back to that place- and suddenly it was receding, and I was with Lestat here now. Astonished, I saw a tear fall onto the face of the child. I saw it glisten on the child's cheek and I saw the cheek become very plump with the child's smile. It must have been seeing the light in the tears.

I whipped the tear from the child's face.

Louis put his hand to his face and wiped at the tears that were in fact there ad looked at them in amazement.

"But Louis…" Lestat was saying softly, "How can you be as you are, how can you stand it?" He was looking up at Louis, his mouth in that same grimace, his face wet with tears. "Tell me, Louis, help me to understand! How can you understand it all, how can you endure?"

And I could see by the desperation in Lestat's eyes and the deeper tone which his voice had taken that he, too, was pushing himself towards something that for him was very painful, towards a place where he hadn't ventured in a long time. But then, even as Louis looked at him, his eyes appeared to become misty, confused. And he pulled the robe up tight, and shaking his head he looked at the fire. A shudder passed through him and he moaned.

"The sun is going to come up soon Louis, you need to get that baby to a safe place where it will be cared for," I told Louis.

"I have to go now, Lestat," Louis said to him.

I felt weary.

Louis rose to his feet, and he realized that he was taking the little baby with him.

Lestat looked up at Louis now with his large, agonized eyes and his smooth, ageless face. "But you'll come back….. You'll come to visit me…. Louis," Lestat asked.

Louis turned away from Lestat.

Lestat called Louis's name and called after him until he left the house.


	72. Chapter 72

Not very long after that I told Armand I'd seen Lestat. Perhaps it was a night, I'm not certain. Time meant little to me then.

But it meant a great deal to Armand. He was amazed that I hadn't mentioned this before. We were walking that night uptown where the city gives way to the Audulon Park and the levee is a deserted, grassy slope that descends to a muddy beach heaped here and there with driftwood, going out to the lapping waves of the river.

I piled some driftwood into a pile and made a fire. On the far bank were the very dim lights of industries and river front companies, pinpoints of green or red that flickered in the distance like stars. And the moon showed the broad, strong current moving fast between the two shores; and even the summer heat was gone here, with the cool breeze coming off the water and gently lifting the moss that hung from the twisted oak where we sat. I was picking at the grass and tossing it into the fire. The gesture seemed natural. I was feeling almost that I might never leave New Orleans. But then, what are such thoughts when you can live forever? Never leave New Orleans 'again'? Again seemed a human word.

"But didn't you feel any desire for revenge," Armand asked. He lay on the grass besides me, his weight on his elbow, his eyes fixed on me.

"Why," I asked calmly. I was wishing that he was here with us. "He's met with his own perfect revenge. He's dying, dying of rigidity, of fear. His mind cannot accept this time. Nothing as serene and graceful as that vampire death you once described to me in Paris. I think he is dying ad clumsily and grotesquely as humans often die in this century."

"How has he met with his perfect revenge though," Armand asked.

"He's dying of old age," I sighed softly.

"But you," Armand began, and then stopped.

"What about me," I asked with a shrug.

"What did you feel," he insisted softly.

And I was struck by the personal quality of this question.

Armand seemed calm and his eyes seemed to be seeing nothing but their own thoughts.

"I felt concern for Lestat," I admitted, "I'm worried about him. I don't want him to die this way. I don't want him to become this rigid. Although one way or another, he will regain his strength and become strong and brave again."

"One way or the other," Armand agreed.

I remembered palpably that sorrow.

"But did he tell you anything," Armand asked.

"He told me many things," I told Armand.

"Anything that made you feel the old hatred," he murmured.

And it was at this point that I became keenly aware of how distressed he was. "No," I answered, "What is it, Armand?"

"I'm simply asking you," Armand shrugged.

"Why do you ask this," I asked.

But he lay back on the sleeve levee then, and for a long time he appeared to be looking at the stars.

The stars brought back to me something far too specific, the ship that had carried Claudia, Louis and I to Europe.

"I thought perhaps he would tell you something about Paris," Armand said.

"What should he say about Paris," I asked.

"Did he say if wanted Claudia to die," Armand asked.

"He didn't want Claudia to die," I told him. Claudia again; the name sounded strange. I remembered playing solitaire with Claudia on the table that shifted with the shifting of the sea, the lantern creaking on its hook, the black porthole full of the stars. She had her head bent, her fingers poised above her ear as if to loosen strands of her hair. And she would look up from the game of solitaire and the sockets of her eyes would almost look empty. "You could have told me anything you wanted about Paris, Armand," I told him.

"When," Armand asked.

"Long before now," I shrugged.

"Would that have even mattered then," He asked.

"It would have mattered," I agreed.

"Even that it was I who…" Armand began.

I turned to him as he lay there looking at the sky. And I saw the extraordinary pain in his face, in his eyes. It seemed his eyes were huge, too huge and the white face that framed them too gaunt. "That it was you who killed her," I asked.

"I forced her out into that yard," Armand admitted.

"And you locked her there," I asked. I couldn't smile.

"Should I tell you," Armand asked.

"Don't tell me you have been feeling pain for it all these years," I demanded.

"Yes I have," Armand admitted.

"No, not you. You didn't do this," I was in denial. I couldn't believe that Armand had been the one who forced Claudia to her death.

And then he closed his eyes and turned his face away, his hand resting on his chest as if I'd struck him an awful, sudden blow.

"You can't convince me you care about this," I said to him coldly. And I looked out towards the water, and again that feeling came over me. In a little while I knew I would get up and go off by myself. That is, if he didn't leave me first. Because I would have liked to remain there actually. It was a quiet place.

"You care about nothing," he was saying.

"I care about Lestat," I shouted at him coldly.

And then he sat up slowly and turned to me so again I could see that dark fire in his eyes. "I thought you would at least care about that," Armand agreed.

"I have so much passion for Lestat," I told him.

"I thought you would feel the old passion, the anger if you were to see him again," Armand assumed.

"You thought I would be angry with Lestat for what happened," I asked.

"I thought something would quicken and come alive in you if you saw him," Armand admitted.

"Will we ever return here to this place, here and now in the moment," I demanded, "why must it always be about the past?"

"If you returned to this place," Armand agreed.

"I will come back to life, to now," I agreed softly. And I felt the cold metallic hardness of my words as I spoke, the modulation, the control. It was as if I were cold all over.

He seemed fragile suddenly; fragile as he had been, actually for a long time. "Yes," he cried out.

"Yes I will come back to life," I agreed with a smile.

"Yes, back to life," Armand said. And he seemed puzzled, positively confused. And a strange thing occurred. He bowed his head at that moment as if he were defeated. And something in the way that he felt that defeat, something in the way his smooth white face reflected it only for an instant, reminded me of someone else I'd seen defeated in just that way. And it was amazing to me that it took me such a long moment to see Claudia's face in that attitude as she stood by the bed in the room at the Hotel Saint-Gabriel, pleading with Louis to transform Madeleine into one of us. That same helpless look, that defeat which seemed to be so heartfelt that everything beyond it was forgotten. And then he, like Claudia, seemed to rally, to pull on some reserve of strength.

Armand said softly to the air, "I'm dying."

And I, watching him, hearing him, the only creature under God who heard him, knowing completely that it was true, said nothing. I didn't know what to say.

A long sigh escaped his lips. His head was bowed. His right hand lay limp beside him in the grass. "Hatred," he said.

"What is hatred," I asked him.

"Hatred… that is passion," he said.

"What else is passion," I asked.

"Revenge, that is passion," he said softly.

"Not from me," I murmured softly.

'You do not wish to exact revenge from me," Armand asked.

"Not now," I told him truthfully.

And then his eyes fixed on me and his face seemed very calm. "I used to believe you would get over it," He said.

"Get over what," I asked.

"That when the pain of all of it left you, you would grow warm again and filled with love, and filled with that wild and insatiable curiosity with which you first came to me, that invertebrate conscience, and that hunger for knowledge that brought you all the way to Paris to my cell. I thought it was a part of you that couldn't die. And I thought that when the pain was gone you would forgive me for what part I played in her death. She never loved you, you know. Not in the way that I loved you, and the way that you loved us both. I knew this! I understood it! And I believed I would gather you to me and hold you. And time would open to us, and we would be the teachers of one another. All the things that gave you happiness would give me happiness; and I would be the protector of your pain. My power would be your power. My strength the same. But you're dead inside to me, you're cold and beyond my reach! It is as if I'm not here, beside you. And, not being here with you, I have the dreadful feelings that I don't exist at all. And you are as cold and distant from me as those strange modern paintings of liens and hard forms that I cannot love or comprehend, as alien as those hard mechanical sculptures of this age which have no human form. I shudder when I'm near you. I look into your eyes and my reflection isn't there…"

Armand and my eyes met. I walked over to him and he kissed me deeply.

"What you asked was impossible," I said quickly.

"What's so impossible about you seeing me, actually seeing me," Armand asked.

"Don't you see," I asked him.

"See what," He asked.

"What I asked was impossible too," I admitted.

"Since when," He asked me.

"From the start," I told him with a start.

He protested, the negation barley forming on his lips, his hand rising as if to thrust it away.

"I wanted love and goodness in this which is living death," I said.

"When was that impossible," he asked.

"It was impossible from the beginning," I told him.

"Why," Armand asked.

"Because you cannot have love and goodness when you do what you know to be evil, what you know to be wrong. You can only have the desperate confusion and longing and the chasing of phantom goodness in its human form. I know the real answer to my quest before I ever reached Paris. I knew it was when I first took a human life to feed my craving. It was my death. And yet it would not accept it, could not accept it, because like all creatures I don't wish to die! And so I sought for other vampires, for god, for the devil, for a hundred things under a hundred names. And it was all the same, all evil. And all wrong. Because no one could in any guise convince me of what I myself knew to be true, that I was damned in my own mind and soul. And when I came to Paris I thought you were powerful and beautiful and without regret, and I wanted that desperately. But you were a destroyer just as I was a destroyer, more ruthless and cunning even than I. you showed me the only thing that I could really hope to become, what dept of evil, what degree of coldness I would have to attain to end my pain. And I accepted that. And so that passion that love you saw in me, was extinguished. And you see now simply a mirror of yourself."

A very long time passed before he spoke. He'd risen t his feet, and he stood with his back to me looking down the river; head bowed as before, his hands at his sides.

I was looking at the river also. I was thinking quietly.

Armand lifted his head, his voice very thick and unlike itself.

"Yes, Armand," I asked.

"Is there anything else you want of me," Armand asked.

"No," I said.

"Anything else you require," He asked.

"No," I said, "What do you mean?"

He didn't answer this. He began to slowly walk away.

I think at first I thought he only meant to walk a few paces.

He wandered by himself along the muddy beach below.

And by the time I realized that he was leaving me, he was a mere speck down there against the occasional flickering in the water under the moon.


	73. Chapter 73

The next night I approached Louis. "You need to tell Armand that you've seen Lestat," I told him gently, "It's been more than a month since you last saw Lestat."

It meant a great deal to Armand when Louis told him. He was amazed that Louis hadn't mentioned this before. We were walking that night uptown where the city gives way to the Audubon Park and the levee is a deserted, grassy slope that descends to a muddy beach heaped here and there with driftwood, going out to the lapping waves of the river. On the far bank were the very dim lights of industries and river-front companies, pinpoints of green or red that flickered in the distance like stars. And the moon showed the broad, strong current moving fast between the two shores; and even the summer heat was gone here, with the cold breeze coming off the water and gently lifting the moss that hung from the twisted oak where Louis and Armand sat.

I went onto the beach and stood in the waves. I let the waves come up and cover my toes.

Louis was picking at the grass, and tasting it.

I went over to Louis and took his hand. "That's so bitter, Louis," I told him with a wrinkled nose.

"But didn't you feel any desire for revenge," Armand asked. He lay on the grass besides Louis, his weight on his elbow, his eyes fixed on Louis.

"Why," Louis asked calmly. "He's met with his own perfect revenge."

"And what's that," I asked Louis.

"He's dying," Louis said softly.

"But, how could he be dying," I asked.

"He's dying of rigidity, of fear," Louis said.

"But his mind is not dying," I objected.

"His mind cannot accept this time. Nothing as serene and graceful as that vampire death you once described to me in Paris," Louis said to Armand.

"How is Lestat dying though," I asked again.

"I think he is dying as clumsily and grotesquely as humans often die in this century… of old age," Louis said.

"But you…" Armand insisted softly, "What did you feel?" It had been years since Armand had spoken to Louis this way. Armand's eyes were large and melancholy that seemed often to be seeing nothing but their own thoughts. Tonight they were lit with a dull fire that was unusual.

"Nothing," Louis answered.

"Nothing one way or the other," Armand asked.

Louis answered no.

"But did he tell you anything, anything that made you feel the old hatred….." Armand murmured. Armand was distressed.

"What is it, Armand," Louis asked.

"It's that he's distressed that you might hate Lestat still," I guessed.

"Why do you ask this," Louis asked.

But he lay back on the steep levee then, and for a long time he appeared to be looking at the stars.

The stars brought back to me something far too specific the ship that had carried Claudia, Louis and me to Europe. I can picture the ship perfectly; every detail, every inch of the ship, how it looked on and off of the ship itself.

"I thought perhaps he would tell you something about Paris," Armand said.

"What should he say about Paris," Louis asked.

"Maybe something about Claudia," I estimated softly.

"That he didn't want Claudia to die," Louis asked.

I remembered Claudia spreading out that game of solitaire on the table that shifted with the shifting of the sea. I remember how the cards kept falling off of the table. A few were even lost to the sea.

"You could have told me anything you wanted about Paris, Armand," Louis said.

"When," I asked Louis.

"Long before now," Louis said.

"Would it have mattered if he had told you last night," I asked.

"It wouldn't have mattered," Louis admitted.

"Even if it was I who," Armand began.

Louis turned to him as he lay there looking at the sky.

And I saw the extraordinary pain in his face. It seemed his eyes were huge.

"That it was you who killed her," Louis asked.

'He didn't kill her," I denied.

"Who forced her out into that yard and locked her there," Louis asked. He smiled.

"He's in pain Louis, say something," I begged him.

"Don't tell me you have been feeling pain for it all these years, not you," Louis denied.

And then Armand closed his eyes and turned his face away, his hand resting on his chest as if Louis had struck him an awful, sudden blow.

"You can't convince me you care about this," Louis said to him coldly.

Armand looked out towards the water. "You care about nothing," Armand said. And then he sat up slowly and turned to Louis so again he could see that dark fire in his eyes.

"What did you think would happen," I asked.

"I thought you would at least care about that," Armand admitted.

"What did you think Louis would feel when he saw Lestat," I asked.

"I thought you would feel the old passion, the old anger if you were to see him again," Armand assumed.

"Feel what," I asked.

"I thought something would quicken and come alive in you again if you saw him,"

"You thought all of this might happen if he saw Lestat," I asked.

"If you returned to this place," Armand admitted.

"That I would come back to life," Louis asked softly.

I felt the cold metallic hardness of his words as he spoke, the modulation, the control. It was as if he were cold.

It was as if Armand was fragile suddenly; fragile, as he had been actually, for a long time. "Yes," he cried out, "Yes, back to life!" and then he seemed puzzled, positively confused. And a strange thing occurred. He bowed his head at that moment as if he were defeated. And something in the way that he felt that defeat, something in the way his smooth white face reflected it only for an instant, reminded me of someone else I'd seen defeated in just that way. And it was amazing to me that it took me such a long moment to see Claudia's face in that attitude; Claudia, as she stood by the bed on the ship. That same helpless look, that defeat which seemed to be so hurtful that everything beyond it was forgotten. And then he, like Claudia, seemed to rally, to pull on some reserve of strength. But he said softly to the air, "I am dying."

And Louis, watching him, the only creature under God who heard him.

A long sigh escaped Armand's lips. His head was bowed. His right hand lay limp beside him in the grass. "Hatred…. That is passion," he said.

"What else is passion," I asked.

"Revenge, that is passion," Armand said.

"Not from me," Louis murmured softly.

"You aren't seeking any type of revenge from Armand," I asked.

"Not now," Louis said.

And then Armand's eyes fixed on Louis and his face seemed very calm. "I used to believe you would get over it," he admitted.

"What would happen when he gets over it," I asked.

"That when the pain of all of it left you, you would grow warm again and filled with love, and filled with that wild and insatiable curiosity with which you first came to me, that invertebrate conscience, and that hunger for knowledge that brought you all the way to Paris to my cell," Armand said.

Ld Armand.

"I thought it was a part of you that couldn't die," Armand admitted.

"What's going to happen when all of Louis's pain is gone," I asked.

"And I thought that when the pain was gone you would forgive me for what part I played in her death," Armand admitted.

"Did she even love Louis," I asked.

"She never loved you, you know. Not in the way that I loved you, and the way that you loved us both. I knew this! I understood it! And I believed I would gather you to me and hold you. And time would open to us, and we would be the teachers of one another. All the things that gave you happiness would give me happiness; and I would be the protector of your pain. My power would be your power. My strength the same. But you're dead inside to me, you're cold and beyond my reach. It is as if I'm not here, beside you. And, not being here with you, I have the dreadful feeling that I don't exist at all. And you are as cold and distant from me as those strange modern paintings of lines and hard forms that I cannot love or comprehend, as alien as those hard mechanical sculptures of this age which have no human form. I shudder when I'm near you. I look into your eyes and my reflection isn't there," Armand argued.

"What you asked was impossible," Louis said quickly.

"What about the things you asked for," I asked Louis.

"Don't you see? What I asked was impossible, too, from the start," Louis admitted.

Armand protested, the negotiation barely forming on his lips, his hand rising as if to thrust it away.

"What did you want," I asked Louis.

"I wanted love and goodness in this which is living death," Louis said, "it was impossible from the beginning."

"How so," I asked.

"Because you cannot have love and goodness when you do what you know to be evil, what you know to be wrong. You can only have the desperate confusion and longing and the chasing of phantom goodness in its human form. I knew the real answer to my quest before I ever reached Paris," Louis admitted.

"When did you realize this," I asked Louis.

"I knew it when I first took a human life to feed my craving. It was my death. And yet I would not accept it, could not accept it," Louis admitted.

"Why," I asked Louis.

"Because like all creatures I don't wish to die! And so I sought for other vampires, for God, for the devil, for a hundred things under a hundred names. And it was all the same," Louis said.

"How so," I asked.

"It's all evil and wrong," Louis said, "Because no one could in any guise convince me of what I myself knew to be true."

"Which was," I asked.

"That I was damned in my own mind and soul," Louis sighed, "and when I came to Paris I thought you were powerful and beautiful and without regret, and I wanted that desperately. But you were a destroyer just as I was a destroyer, more ruthless and cunning even than I. You showed me the only thing that I could rally hope to become, what depth of evil, what degree of coldness I would have to attain to end my pain. And I accepted that. And so that passions that love you saw in me, was extinguished. And you see now simply a mirror of yourself."

A very long time passed before Armand spoke. He'd risen to his feet, and he stood with his back to Louis looking down the river, head bowed as before, his hands at his sides.

Louis was looking at the river also.

I went to face Armand and whispered to him, "You've got to talk to him."

"Louis," Armand said, lifting his head, his voice very thick and unlike itself.

'Yes, Armand," Louis said.

"Is there anything else you want of me," Armand asked.

"What do you mean," I asked Armand.

"Anything else you require," Armand asked.

'No," Louis said, "what do you mean?"

"You don't need to answer that, Armand," I mind spoke to him.

He didn't answer this. He began to slowly walk away. He only meant to walk a few paces.

And by the time Louis realized that Armand was leaving him, he was a mere speck down there against the occasional flickering in the water under the moon.

After that night I never saw Armand again.

I took his hand. "Armand, let's wander along the muddy beach," I offered to him.


	74. Chapter 74

Of course, it was several nights later before I realized he was gone. His coffin remained. But he did not return to it. "Louis, we need to get rid of Armand's coffin," I told him. And it was several months before Louis had that coffin taken to the St. Louis cemetery and put into the crypt besides his own. The grave, long neglected because his family was gone, received the only thing he'd left behind. I thought of it on waking. I could tell it was bothering Louis. And I went downtown one night with Louis and took the coffin out, and broke it into pieces and left it in the narrow aisle of the cemetery in the tall grass.

That vampire who was Lestat's latest child accosted Louis one evening not long after. He begged him to tell him all he knew of the world. He asked me to become his companion.

I refused.

"You see, someone must die every night that I walk, until I've the courage to end it," Louis told him, "And you're an admirable choice for that victim, a killer as evil as myself."

"Please don't end your life," I requested Louis. I clung to his leg.

"I'm leaving New Orleans tomorrow," Louis told me.

I hugged Louis tightly. "I have to stay here with Lestat. He needs me to help clean up around the house," I confessed to Louis.

And he left New Orleans the next night before the sorrow wasn't leaving me. And I didn't want to think of that old house I lived in with Lestat. And that's the end of it.


	75. Chapter 75

A few days after Louis left us, a mute boy appeared at our doorstep. The boy drew back slightly at the sight of me.

"How did things end between you and Louis," He asked me as he ran the fingers of his right hand loosely through his hair.

"Would you like to know," I asked him.

"I want to know everything you've felt since you turned into a vampire," he said softly. He slightly leaned forward to get a better look at me.

"That's a lot to tell in one night," I told the boy.

"What happened in Paris," He asked.

"You are mistaken," I said to him with a smile, "I am not Claudia."

"But Louis spoke of her so, and you are a child vampire just as she was," He pointed out, "Louis loved her so. And this is where Lestat lives; only he would allow Claudia to remain here with him. Or, are you Lestat's new child?"

"You need to accept that Claudia is dead," I said softly.

"I don't accept it," said the boy, and he folded his arms across his chest.

"Why not," I asked him.

"I can't," he said, shaking his head emphatically, "After everything Louis said about her, she can't be dead."

"How did Louis make her sound," I asked.

"Don't you see how he made it sound," the boy asked as the emotions seemed to build in him, "It was an adventure like I'll never know in my whole life!"

"What else did he tell you about," I asked.

"He talked about passion," the boy said as he began to pace.

"What types of passion," I asked.

"He talked about longing," the boy said.

"What type of longing," I asked.

"He talked about things that millions of us won't ever taste or come to understand," he said as he stretched his hand out before him.

"And do you want to understand these things," I asked.

"If you were to give me that power," the boy begged.

"What power," I asked him.

"The power to see and feel and live forever," the boy.

"You want to see the things that I see," I asked him.

"Give it to me," said the boy, his right hand tightening in a fist.

"You want me to make you into a vampire," I asked him.

"Make me a vampire now," he said as the first pounded his chest. What happened then was swift and confused, but it ended abruptly with me on my feet holding the boy by the shoulders, the boy's moist face contorted with fear. A small cry escaped the boy's lips.

"You think I don't know what it's like to be human," I asked the boy as I stroked his hair.

"You don't know what human life is like," he said as he began to tremble all over.

"But I knew once," I told him.

"You've forgotten," the boy assumed as sweat began to break out on his forehead.

"What else don't I know," I asked.

"You don't even understand the meaning of your own story," the boy said as sweat broke out on the skin above his upper lip.

"I know what it means to me," I told the boy.

"What it means to a human being like me," the boy suggested as his hands reached gingerly for my arm.

"Don't cry," I told the boy softly.

And then a choked sob interrupted his words.

"You don't need to beg," I told the boy gently.

His fingers clung to my arm. 'I beg you," the boy choked.

"What do you want me to do," I asked him.

"Give it all one more chance. One more chance in me," said the boy.

And then I reached out for the boy so fast that the boy found himself grasping something, pushing against something that was not there, so his hand was outstretched still when I had him pressed to my chest, the boy's neck bent beneath my lips.

The boy stuttered, a low guttural sound coming out of his throat, his hand struggling to close on something, his eyes widening only to become dull and gray as I gently drank from him.

I looked as tranquil as someone in sleep. My narrow chest heaved subtly with my sigh that I seemed to be rising slowly from the floor and then settling again with that same somnambulistic grace.

A whine came from the boy, and so I let him go.

I held the boy with both hands and looked at the damp white face, the limp hands, and the eyes half closed.

The boy was moaning, his lower lip loose and trembling as if in nausea. He moaned again louder, and his head fell back and his eyes rolled up into his head.

I set him down gently in a chair inside.

The boy was struggling to speak, "Will I… die?"

"Only if you really want to become a vampire," I told him.

The tears which sprang now to his eyes seemed to come as much from that effort to speak as from anything else. His head fell forward, heavily, drunkenly, and his hand rested on the table.

Lestat came into the room and looked down at him.

The boy looked up slowly, his mouth wet and slack," will I die," he whispered.

"Only your body will die," Lestat told him.

The boy seemed on the verge of saying something more, but the hand that rested on the table slid forward on the boards, and his head lay down beside it as he lost consciousness.

The windows of the room were dirty, undressed windows.

For a moment he laid there, his face against the table and then with great effort, he straightened.

"Breathe," I told him.

He took a long deep breath.

"Close your eyes and relax," I told him gently.

He closed his eyes and pressed his hand to the place where I had drawn blood.

I went to the white basin in the bathroom and ran some water on a towel. I brought it back to the boy and whipped his face down with the soiled towel.

He was breathing regularly now.

Lestat turned him into a vampire that night and gave him exactly what he had wanted.


End file.
